Category Archives: Reading

It’s Amazing!

Reading, Things, ,

I’ve had this book since I was in grade school. I only just now realized that it belonged to my Aunt Ginny. I thought it was something I picked at a school book sale, or through the Weekly Reader books. No, this book was published in 1958. Aunt Ginny would have been thirteen years old. I am sure I read it cover-to-cover at least once. It’s no wonder I became an insufferable know-it-all as a kid.

The book is part of a series based on an old newspaper column called It’s Amazing (Tell Me Why). There is not much about the column on the Internet.

Knowing that this belonged to Aunt Ginny changes my thoughts about it. I’d planned on donating it, but now I am torn. I want to check it to see what has changed since 1958.

What Makes Us Hungry?

According to ChatGPT, this chapter is a mixed bag:

“Hunger has nothing to do with an empty stomach.”

Modern science: Not true.

An empty stomach absolutely contributes to hunger, although it isn’t the whole story.

As your stomach empties it:

  • stretches less
  • produces the hormone ghrelin, which signals the brain that it’s time to eat
  • generates contractions (“stomach growling” or borborygmi)

However, people can have an empty stomach and not feel hungry (during illness, stress, or after intense exercise), so the authors weren’t completely wrong—they just overstated it.

Better modern version: Hunger is influenced by both an empty stomach and signals from the brain and hormones.

⚠️ “Hunger begins when certain foods are missing in the blood.”

Partly true, but outdated.

Scientists in the 1950s thought the brain mostly detected shortages of nutrients in the blood.

Today we know hunger comes from many signals, including:

  • ghrelin from the stomach
  • leptin from body fat
  • insulin
  • blood glucose
  • amino acids
  • gut hormones (GLP-1, PYY, CCK)
  • learned eating habits
  • sight and smell of food
  • stress and sleep

So blood nutrients are only one piece of the puzzle.

⚠️ “The hunger center works like a brake on the stomach.”

Partly true.

There isn’t a single “hunger center.”

Instead, several areas of the brain—especially the hypothalamus—work together to regulate hunger.

The brain does communicate with the stomach and intestines through nerves (especially the vagus nerve), but it’s much more of a two-way conversation than the book suggests.

✅ “When the stomach becomes more active you hear rumbling.”

This is basically correct.

Stomach growling comes from muscular contractions moving air and liquid through the stomach and intestines. It often happens when you’re hungry because of the migrating motor complex, but it can also happen after you’ve eaten.

❌ “When we are hungry, our body doesn’t crave any special kind of food.”

We now know this isn’t always true.

People can develop cravings because of:

  • experience
  • emotions
  • hormones
  • availability
  • culture

Whether the body specifically craves nutrients (like salt when sodium is low) is more complicated. Most everyday cravings are not direct signs of nutrient deficiency.

⚠️ “Appetite makes us eat a variety of foods.”

There’s actually some truth here.

Modern nutrition recognizes sensory-specific satiety:

  • You get tired of one flavor.
  • A different flavor becomes appealing.
  • This helps encourage a varied diet.

Their potato/soup/meat/dessert example is an early description of this idea, although it’s simplified.

Overall

For a children’s book published in 1958, I’d give it a surprisingly good score.

StatementToday
Empty stomach doesn’t matter❌ Incorrect
Blood nutrients influence hunger⚠️ Partly true
Brain regulates hunger✅ Correct, but oversimplified
Stomach rumbling accompanies hunger✅ Mostly correct
Appetite encourages dietary variety✅ Largely correct

I’d say about 60–70% accurate by today’s standards. The biggest change since 1958 is that we’ve learned hunger isn’t controlled by a single “hunger center” responding only to nutrients in the blood. Instead, it’s regulated by a complex network of hormones, nerves, the digestive tract, body fat, metabolism, emotions, habits, and the brain.

I may or may not continue this fact-checking. Stay tuned. Or not…

Ripley’s Big Book Believe it or Not!

Memories, Reading, , ,

When I was young and visited my grandparents home in Elgin I loved the room with the books. It was off the dining room and while the adults played poker at the dining room table the kids played with toys or read books in the book room. They had only a few books that kids would like, most were my grandfather’s books with titles like “Have Gun, Will Shoot”.

While I liked the Rupert Bear annual from maybe the 1930s, I always gravitated to the huge Ripley’s Believe it or Not book. First printed in 1929, it held illustrated stories of the strange, the next to impossible, the macabre. In its pages I learned about the man with two-foot-long fingernails, that Saint Patrick was not an Irishman, and I learned about shrunken heads. To this day I think about this book when reading clickbait headlines on the Internet.

My delight in this book was tempered with a small bit of shame. It seemed naughty reading this book and looking at the illustrations which were often off-putting. Close-ups of people, like the illustration of the actor who could make his hair stand on end or the man who buried his head in the sand for 9 hours.

And while thumbing through the book I came across something that I repeated to people as true fact throughout my childhood. I’d completely forgotten about until just now.

Intoxicated actually means "shot with a poisoned arrow"

Maybe every era had its fake news…

Grandma’s Tablecloth

Memories, Musings, Reading, Things, ,

I’m reading a book, Wish You Well, that takes place in Southwestern Virginia in the early 1940s. In it the great-grandmother of one of the protagonists sews her a “feed sack dress”, a term new to me. Of course I asked Professor Google and was surprised to learn that feed sack companies made feed sack material dual purpose. The first, a container for the feed, the second a dress or apron or other cloth-made item. The material was not just white or off-white with lettering printed on it, but floral, or striped, or otherwise decorated. I remembered a cotton tablecloth my Grandma Patrick had on her kitchen table and wondered if it could have been made out of a feed sack. I was lucky to be given it and used it on my table for a while. I had no idea where it was, but today I serendipitously came across it while going through boxes for a different reason.

The tablecloth has a pattern of different types of flowers on a gray background with a crochet trim. The material is is soft to the touch, but strong. I’m willing to bet it was made from a feed sack, but of course no one is left to confirm my suspicion.

I’ve decided that it should not sit in a plastic bag in the storage area of my attic, but be displayed somewhere in the house. It’s now covering a too-dark bedside table in the purple guest room.