How Does Aspirin Find a Headache? (23 page)

Why
Do Starving Children Have Bloated Stomachs?

How often have we seen pictures of young children, near death from starvation, with emaciated faces and bloated stomachs? The image is haunting and yet ironic: Why do these children, desperately in need of food, have such protruding abdomens?

Bloated abdomens are a symptom of protein calorie malnutrition (PCM). Many of these youths are starving from a generally inadequate calorie consumption and concomitant insufficient protein. But others are suffering from “kwashiorkor,” a condition in which children who consume a proper amount of calories are not eating enough protein. Kwashiorkor is most common among many of the rice-based cultures in the third world, where traditional sources of protein (meat, fish, legumes) are uncommon or too costly for the average citizen.

Insufficient protein consumption can lead to severe problems—it produces the lack of energy reflected in the passive, affectless expression of these PCM children. PCM can affect every organ in the body, but it is particularly devastating to the pancreas, liver, blood, and lymphatic system.

A healthy person’s blood vessels leak a little fluid, which collects outside of the vessels. Ordinarily, the lymphatic vessels remove this liquid. But when the lymphatic system malfunctions, as it does in PCM children, the fluid builds up in the skin, causing a condition known as edema.

In these children, a particular type of fluid accumulation, ascites (the fluid buildup in the abdominal cavity), accounts for much of the bloated stomach. A little fluid in the abdominal cavity is a desirable condition, because the fluid helps cushion organs. Ascites in isolation may not be dangerous, but they are often a symptom of liver damage. Don Schwartz, a pediatrician at Philadelphia’s Children Hospital, told
Imponderables
that membranes often weaken during protein calorie malnutrition, which only adds to the leakage of body fluids into the abdominal cavity.

Dysfunctional livers often swell. The liver is one of the largest organs in the body and usually constitutes 2 to 3 percent of one’s entire body weight. According to Dr. Schwartz, an enlarged liver can contribute to a swollen belly.

Of course, not only small children are subject to this condition. Bloated stomachs are common in any individuals suffering malnutrition, and are most often seen in Western countries among sick people who have experienced sudden weight loss. Hospitals are alert to the problem of PCM among adults—one estimate concluded that about 25 percent of hospitalized
adults
in the United States have some form of PCM.

Why
Do Most Buses and Trucks Keep Their Engines Idling Rather Than Shutting Them Off While Waiting for Passengers or Cargo?

During the first big gas crisis, public service announcements on radio and television urged us not to leave engines idling unnecessarily. Why don’t buses and trucks live by the standards we mundane auto drivers do?

The key to the answer is the fuel used in the bus or truck. If you observe carefully, you’ll notice that the “idlers” are diesel-powered vehicles. We always thought that bus drivers were leaving engines idle out of laziness, but Morris Adams, of Thomas Built Buses, set us straight:

Idling can also be a safety issue. Most buses, and many big trucks, operate with air brakes. Air brakes can’t operate effectively until sufficient air pressure has built up, a process that can take about ten minutes.

And one issue pertains specifically to school or public buses—comfort. Karen E. Finkel, executive director of the National School Transportation Association, explains:

Why
Does One Sometimes Find Sand in the Pockets of New Blue Jeans?

Conceivably, you might have picked up a pair of jeans returned by a previous customer who went to the beach, but that is highly unlikely. We aren’t gamblers by nature, but we would be willing to wager a small sum that the jeans in question were stonewashed.

Stonewashed jeans are softened by rubbing against pumice stones during washing. Dori Wofford, a marketing specialist at jeans behemoth Levi Strauss & Co., explains how mighty stones can turn into sand:

Obviously, pockets are the one portion of the jeans most susceptible to trapping loose pumice. Any other sand would tend to get rinsed away with the wash water.

Why
Do So Many Recreational Vehicle Owners Put Cardboard or Plywood Square Covers over Their Wheels?

The ultraviolet rays from direct sunlight oxidizes the rubber in tires rapidly, leading to premature cracking and drying. Bill Baker, media relations manager for the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association, told us that “there are vinyl covers manufactured and sold to meet this need.” We have seen many a custom-cover, emblazoned with family names, mottoes, and mascots, as we passed RVs on the highway. But enterprising and frugal RV owners have found a solution that not only recycles forest products but, not coincidentally, saves them a few bucks.

Why
Are Most People Buried Without Shoes?

Personally, we can’t imagine an eternal life with uncomfortable shoes. This funeral tradition has always made sense to us; we don’t even like to wear shoes when we are awake.

Richard A. Santore, executive director of the Associated Funeral Directors International, reminded us that for those buried in half-open caskets, the shoes (or lack therof) wouldn’t be visible and are thus unnecessary. And he added devilishly, aware of the precarious logic behind his assertion, “Now you may ask why we are buried with underwear—I don’t know!” We have yet to meet a funeral director without a wicked sense of humor. Comes in handy in the profession, we’d guess.

Several members of the funeral profession claimed that nearly as many folks are buried with shoes as without these days. Indeed, one of the “options” bereaved families are given, when arranging the ceremony, is “burial slippers.”

Dr. Dan Flory, president of the Cincinnati College of Mortuary Science, told us that some people believe that a dead person can rest better and “the spirit will not wander if shoes are omitted.” But his other theory ties in specifically to the comfort we feel in repressing the finality of death:

We agree with the thesis. But then, following this logic, wouldn’t we be buried in pajamas?

What
Is a “New York Steak”? Is It a Cut of Meat? Is It a Part of the Cow? And Why Can’t You Find “New York Steaks” in New York?

Reader Douglas Watkins, Jr., posed this Imponderable four years ago and has waited patiently while we’ve been researching it ever since. We’ve contacted about twenty meat experts and have come to the conclusion that Douglas might decide, after having read this chapter, that the wait wasn’t worth it.

One of our first conversations on the topic was with Merle Ellis, a combination butcher-media star, who wrote an excellent book,
Cutting-up in the Kitchen
, which, among other things, rigorously defines all of the cuts of a cow. Ellis places the New York steak in the short loin, between the rib and the sirloin of the cow, in the middle of the back. The short loin contains a high percentage of fat and very little muscle. As a result, the most expensive cuts of meat come from this 10 percent of edible beef: filet mignon, porterhouse, tournedos, T-bones, and, alas, the New York steak. But what part of the short loin constitutes the New York steak?

On this question, we’re afraid, the National Association of Hotel and Restaurant Meat Purveyors, the American Meat Institute, the National Live Stock & Meat Board, and the numerous restaurateurs and butchers we spoke to cannot agree. Merle Ellis votes for the top loin muscle of the tenderloin; others vote for the center of the loin. Indeed, the
New York Times
’s Molly O’Neill was inspired by this dilemma and wrote a whole story about it in the January 2, 1991, article “In Search of New York Steak? Ask Anywhere but New York.” She eventually came to the same conclusion that we have: “There is no part of a cow with New York stamped on it, nor any particular cut of beef that is peculiarly ‘New York.’”

Several of our sources, including Dr. Stuart Ensor, of the National Live Stock & Meat Board, suggested that “New York” does not refer to a particular type of cut but is merely a promotional adjective. New York equals “the best.” This helps explain the last part of our Imponderable: why New York steaks are rarely called “New York steaks” in New York! Alas, the grass is always greener on the other side. While New York steaks might have allure in the West, New Yorkers conjure the Midwest as the true home of the stockyards and therefore the best beef. As Ellis so eloquently put it in
Cutting-up in the Kitchen:

Why
Are Some Aluminum Cans—Even Different Cans of the Same Product—Harder to Crush Than Others?