We humans are a weird bunch. Some of us are shooting a spacecraft at an asteroid to demonstrate that it's a viable technique to protect the planet but others still insist that swallowed gum will stay in our stomachs for 7 years.
Interested in hearing the most prevalent misconceptions, Reddit user FM596 made a post on the platform, asking everyone to share myths that are passed from generation to generation, and that people still believe in. Turns out, there's no shortage of those! Continue scrolling and check out some of the most-upvoted entries.
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That certain animal 'parts' have healing/magical properties. Like tiger whiskers protect the wearer or rhino horn cures impotence and hangovers.
We managed to get in touch with FM596 and they agreed to tell us more about what inspired their post. "One of the reasons I decided to ask this question was to see how many people will mention the thousand-years-old-myth of supposedly living in a democracy (in any country)," they told Bored Panda.
"Democracy was real and has existed only once. After it was violently destroyed, leaders used the word democracy to mislead us into thinking that what we have is the best we can get."
"Out of the 12,000 comments, only 12 people mentioned that myth, just 1 out of 12,000, or 0.008%. That says a lot about the level of political edification we get from the state."
Boys playing with dolls (or other traditional feminine toys) will turn them gay. Or that anything will turn people gay or lesbian.
Trickle down economics.
If rich people were putting their money back into the economy, there wouldn't be any billionaires.
However, after going through the replies, FM596 thinks not all of them are valid. "First, not everything posted as a myth is, indeed, a myth. Many [of the entries] are half-truths, others are imprecisely expressed or misunderstood, and others are definitely non-myths."
The Redditor believes that, "we are ignorant on many critical subjects, because: "a) we get a really bad education from the state, and b) we are being bombarded daily with misleading information that aims to serve the best interests of the powerful few -not the people, and that's a fact, not a myth, that's the world we live in."
That being out in cold weather will make you catch a Cold. The cold is a virus you catch from others and nothing to do with the outside temperature.
There is basis of truth in this one. People stay inside more during cold weather. Spending more time with other people in an enclosed space makes you more likely to be exposed to any viruses that might be around. Also, studies have found that airborne viruses are carried farther by the more denser cold air. Therefore, there is a greater chance of airborne viruses touching a person rather than ending up on the ground.
That you have to wait 24 hours before filing a missing person report.
Ironically, as much as we like to think that we value truth, we have also designed the world in a way that makes it really hard for it to travel between us.
There's a well-known MIT study from 2018 that analyzed the spread of news stories on Twitter. Using data drawn from 3 million platform users from 2006 to 2017, the researchers, led by Soroush Vosoughi, a computer scientist who is now at Dartmouth, found that fact-checked news stories moved differently through social networks depending on whether they were true or false.
"Falsehood diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth," they wrote in their paper.
That the hymen is a freshness seal like a snapple cap, has any bearing on virginity, and your first time should hurt and cause bleeding
Religion, easily.
I get that people believe in religion but they have zero proof that any of it is true.
That GMOs are bad. Without GMOs, we wouldn't have a lot of the food we have today.
We've been eating GMOs for 1000s of years. That's what selective breeding does. Some of the foods we eat would be poisonous in their original forms
That we use 10% of our brain. Power or capacity, this was actually proven to be b******t.
That shaving makes hair grow back thicker and longer.
When you shave, the hair is cut in two. The lower part of the hair is now the top, where it used.tot be the middle of a hair. The original top of the hair had to move up to skin level and further on and was damaged doing so. And damaged means thinner. So the cut side is al the way up and as thick as possible. And this is what you experience when it grows further on. Massive and thick hair.
I got pregnant in 2002 and people legit told me I shouldn't raise my arms over my head because the cord would wrap around the baby's neck. Not just great grandmas telling me this either. People at my restaurant job fussed at me all the time for getting things off high shelves. Insane.
This was hilarious! Can those people please draw a pic on how they think your arms and the cord ia connected?
That your generation is always the last good generation.
Swallowed gum will stay in your stomach for 7 years. Never seen a single wad of gum in the hundreds of thousands of stomachs I’ve looked into.
That fish only have a 5-second memory. My fish are fed automatically on a timer and they know dinner time better than my goddamn cat.
That your hair and fingernails still grow after you die. It's mainly an optical illusion. Your skin decays and shrinks, causing hair and fingernails to look like they've grown.
That birds will abandon their babies if they have a human scent on them.
That cats kill babies.
I’ve run into this so many times since having kids. And it’s not the older grandmas making these statements. I’ve had 20 year olds tell me that you can’t have cats if you plan to have babies because “they’ll steal their breath” or some other variation. No amount of reasoning or rationale will dissuade them of this belief
I've always hears that this come from cats that end up sleeping on a baby and the baby can't breath. I have no idea if this is true or not.
Circumcision is medically beneficial enough to be *routinely* done to every male infant born, rather than just like.. you know… waiting to see if it’s actually necessary.
Pit bulls can lock their jaws. If they bite you then you have to kill them because their jaws are locked.
No, I am not kidding. I’ve heard this BS from the elderly and from kids. They just keep repeating this nonsense.
Only if it is a hybrid created in a Chinese research lab and one of its parents was a snapping turtle.
90% of the myths surrounding pregnancy and childbirth.
If the baby’s heart rate is fast it’s a girl. If you crave sweet things it’s a girl, if you are carrying “high” it’s a girl.
They’re the only ones I can think of at the moment but there are so many other myths out there.
funnily enough I had a major sweet tooth in both my girl pregnancies and was craving savoury foods with my boy. Didn't know about that belief though...
Lightning never strikes the same place twice.
As Fleetwood Mac would say, “Lightning strikes maybe once, maybe twice.”
Someone can be tested to determine their virginity status. Hymens aren't barriers, they aren't supposed to be broken, and they heal when they do tear. No one, not even a doctor can look at someone and know they're a virgin or not.
Bulls become angry seeing the color red.
Bulls become angry when men in stupid Prince outfits taunt them while crowds cheer and then the poor bulls get speared. Absolutely disgusting.
That reading in dim lighting will cause you to lose your eyesight.
If you watch the TV too much or too close, you will go blind
One that's still not known well is the white people in the south and middle America that think they are part Cherokee. You're like 99.9% sure to be wrong. Your family is wrong. There wasn't a "Cherokee princess" or any of that. It's a folks tale basically. And your grandma was told the same as a kid, she told your mom, hour mom td you.
People get defensive about this because you have to accept that A) Your family accidentally mislead you on something your whole life, and B) you don't have some magic Cherokee princess Native American blood. You're just white.
This is what happened with Elizabeth Warren. She was told this tale and believed she was part Cherokee. I was also told this and believed it while growing up. Almost all of my friends were told the same about themselves too.
Just a folk tale passed down the generations
100% true. I heard the same c**p my whole life. Did the old 23&me test... ZERO native DNA. I'm literally more Neanderthal than Native American.
The word Neanderthal has a negative connotation attached to it. They were actually smart. So you're good :)
Load More Replies... I don’t get this one. If you believe it then why treat Native Americans so poorly?
I do find it rather amusing that all these people I know who maybe have 1% wear it like a badge of honor but treat those people so horribly. it's embarrassing
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the myth of native american ancestry is also common amongst many african-americans...which, when you think of it, is a great coping mechanism...imagining your great-great-grandmother falling in love and having babies with a native american is a much nicer way of thinking about how your skin is lighter than say, a someone from africa, rather than acknowledging the more likely explanation that your great-great-grandmother was likely raped by her white oppressors...as if being enslaved were not enough.
2 things: 1. a surprising number of people in America DO have Native American ancestry. I do (confirmed by DNA) and have no idea why I do. 2. The best explanation about this I ever saw was on FAQ on a Native American website years and years ago (no longer remember the nation). "How do I know if I'm (Native American)? Answer "If you have to ask that question, then chances are, you're probably not. In our nation, there is no 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 (Nation). You are or you aren't. It's not about blood. It's about how you're raised and how you grow up. If you were one of us, you wouldn't have to ask. You'd know because you'd always have been one of us, and there would be no question about it."
My mother said this, and actually believed it and still does. She actually chastised me for not using that 'part Cherokee' to help get myself into college. Yeah, right. I'm unable to be in direct sunlight because the reflected light would strip the paint off cars. I'm not part Cherokee, I'm part bleach.
You have to have a certain percentage for that to even work. They want the receipts!!
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I wonder how often it was told to explain a child that was just a little too brown?
I watched an Elizabeth Warren interview where she was asked if she had any proof that her ancestors were Cherokee Indians. She responded "My grandfather had high cheek bones."
That is literally how my grandma showed us too 🤣🤣 She pointed out our cheekbones
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My mother was a Lumbee Indian. When folks hear this they ALWAYS tell me they are part native American. Every time.
That's like everyone in California claiming they're "part Cherokee" lol My husband's grandma was Chickasaw (1/2) They are also the same idiots who tell foreigners here to "go back where they came from" as if we didn't steal this country. America is a melting pot of all cultures. My Trumpster cousin is big on spouting that nonsense completely ignoring that all of our grandparents are immigrants from Italy.
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I think I'm 25% bobcat but just because I like fish and spit and hiss at people doesn't make it so.
I was just watching a Finding Your Roots where the guest's ancestor had claimed Native heritage but old census data indicated mulatto, the latter was true. She asked why the picture of her grandmother looked Native and the host said, your seeing all the European mixed in. Race is such a silly construct. Americans terrible history means we can't let it go
"Race is the child of racism, not the father" - Ta-nehisi Coates
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I was told this all of my life....that my family were 50% Choctaw on one side. I look white. Everyone else in my family has dark hair and darker skin. 23 and me revealed that yes, in fact, my family was correct.
My husband hasn't done his yet but since his grandma was 1/2 Chickasaw, we're pretty certain his will show up, lol
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We even have a photograph of my grandfather's parents in which his mother looks uncannily like an old native american woman. But my mother's 23-and-me results came back 0% native.
I think if you put an Italian grandma next to a Native American grandma and have them wear similar clothes, itwould be hard to pick who is who with accuracy.
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It will be more likely in certain isolated parts of the Appalachian mountain range, IF your relatives/ancestors were early settlers. If not, once they removed the Cherokee from their ancestral lands, they weren't around to run their farms/plantations, and marry the settlers. And since, up until the 80's, it was not something you talked about outside the family, and everybody thought everybody would look down on, and discriminate against them for it, most families didn't keep written records of that dort of thing. Not to mention most people were illiterate, further hampering record keeping efforts. However, whether you are, genetically American Indian, that does not make you a member of the tribe...those official records are kept by every tribe, based on its own rules, and having a blood percentage is NOT enough for them. Many tribes, all across the U.S., have begun (in some cases, controversially) expelling people, paring down their membership rosters...this includes the two Cherokee Nation tribes.
Take a DNA test and solve this issue once and for all for your family history!
My brother always tried to claim Cherokee ancestry. He had a different father than I did and claimed his family had traced their lineage back to a Cherokee chief in the 1700s. Said that they had tried to claim money from the government but claimed it came back that they were 1/64th Cherokee and didn't qualify. This man had a beard that would put those Duck Dynasty guys to shame. His wife tried to claim Sioux or Blackfoot. The whitest people you ever seen. But yeah, people get this notion that because their cheekbones are high then they must be Native American. You know, not like anyone else ever had high cheekbones. SMH.
1/2 Polish here...zero Native blood, super high cheekbones from my grandma from Warsaw! lol
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What's funny is that it's always Cherokee and never any other Nation. Never Choctaw or Sequoia or Natchez or Pomo. Just Cherokee..I guess it's more fun to say. What a bunch of dummies.
LOL that's ALWAYS the tribe people claim here in California, lol. Husband is Chocktaw. A lot of them also have generations of families from here and it's not even the right tribe they're claiming.
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Wow. I remember my mom telling my sister and I that we had Cherokee blood (a Great-something grandmother on her side of the family). I was about 10yrs old, I think. Some years later, we were talking family trees, and we came to the conclusion that this Great-something Cherokee Grandmother either married my Great-something Grandfather who already had kids, or she didn't exist to begin with. I think perhaps at some point some white people were told that that there was a benefit to having a certain percentage of your heritage be Native American. I know that if your family heritage is native to Alaska, you have certain rights to hunting, fishing, and other things that other people don't have.
My great great grandmother was Native American. However, I do not know what tribe she belonged to, so I don't identify myself as one because I feel it's unfair for me too.
It would be fun to find out though...a DNA test would tell you what tribe :)
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I really do have native blood, my dads grandmother was full blood native American
Could someone write a bit more about this myth please? I never heard about it (I'm not from the US) and it seems interesting.
I know it's reallllllyyyy prevalent in California. I know a lot of people who claimed they had Native American blood because that's what they were told. DNA kits proved otherwise.
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My (Texas) father's grandmother WAS 100% Cherokee, my father's mom was half Cherokee. My dad was allowed to fish without a fishing license in Texas because he was a quarter Cherokee. My dad's 3 half Cherokee aunts called me ' Little yellow eyes' because I have amber eyes. My father's father was an emigrant born in Germany.
I've read that many who think they are part native American, especially if it is a very small part in an otherwise Caucasian family often is part African American. It used to be that having a for example Cherokee great grandmother was way less embarrassing than an African American ancestor, but this native American relative could explain darker skin etc. Nowadays this lie is so many generations back and has been told and retold so much that the actual truth isn't known.
Except that I've actually seen some people with my great-grandma's maiden name on the Dawes Rolls for both Cherokees and Choctaws. And I don't think her maiden name was a very common name.
I was told that we have a Cree Indian Princess in the fam. AncestryDNA does not back that up.
Oddly, my sisters *are* part Cherokee. Their either great-great or great-great-great grandma was Cherokee. The man who fathered them showed it in his looks, and with 1 of my sisters it's very obvious. I myself am so pale I pitied photographers trying to get good lighting in family pics to highlight them without making me glow lol
I can very confidently say that i am 100% non-Cherokee. Or any other Native American nation. Most exotic part of my lineage would be a possible Polish ancestor but other than that, i am 99.9 percent German 🤭 My dad was an avid reader of Native American-stories as a kid and i read most of them, too. Not sure about accuracy, though
This happened to me too. My dad's mom told him all kinds of stories about it and my dad really identified with what he thought was his native American ancestry. I did a DNA ancestry thing and it came back showing me as 100% European (and yes, he was my real dad.) I decided not to tell him at the time and then he passed unexpectedly last October. I struggle with wondering if I made the right decision to not to him.
My cousin thought the same thing, that it was bulls*it, when she was told Your Grandpa was a Kickapoo Indian. Ancestry DNA told her she's 26%Native American...that's one full grandparent. The only case I've ever known where the family myth was borne out.
Soooooo many people I know were gobsmacked when they did their DNA tests and found zero Native American genes. I knew there was zero chance I was since my grandparents are from Poland and Italy but I thought SOMETHING unexpected would show up. Nope. Split right in half 50/50 lol. My husband has quite a lot of Chickasaw in his blood since his paternal grandmother was 1/2 Swedish and 1/2 Native, roughly.
Swedish/Chickasaw is quite an interesting matchup.
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I was told my entire life I was part Native American. Took a DNA test....ZERO% Native American...
Not Cherokee specifically, but I remember my Papa (paternal grandfather) telling me that we were part Native American. He was researching our genealogy, so I didn't think to doubt him, though that was back before Ancestry.com was a thing not to mention DNA testing. I remember saying something to my dad about it and he said my Papa just thinks that because we tan easily. Sure enough, I did the DNA testing and an almost certainly 100% white. In fact, there's a significant percentage Scandinavian, so I'm even more white than I thought.
I was told this too. Thanks to DNA testing my dad does have Cherokee blood. He did not pass it to my sister. We are still waiting for my results.
I am confused how someone can not pass on parts of his genes as a parent. Only reason i can think of is that his percentage is already small and hers is not detectable anymore🤔
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this is mostly told in African American families, not white families. Watch Finding Your Roots.
Reading the comments, i highly doubt that you are correct
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We also heard that family legend. Our family tree on FamilySearch.org does include a documented member of the Cherokee Nation back a couple hundred years, but I haven't checked all the sources of all the links to confirm if it's true. It's also on a different branch than the legend, so...
Yup. Happened in my family. My grandma was from the south but said it came from my grandpa's side.
Somewhere along the lines, both sides of my family have Native American. It's pretty deep though
My husband has native blood but not because he was told this as a kid...his grandmother was indigenous and lived on a reservation.
Carrots improve vision. Has to be on the list for top propaganda campaigns. Started in WWII to cover for the use of radar. Still to this day more people I meet believe it than don't.
Carrots contain beta-carotene which is converted to vitamin A in the body, which in turn binds to a protein in the eye to make rhodopsin. Rhodopsin is a light-absorbing molecule necessary for low-light and colorvision. In turn, the absence of vitamin A can cause nightblindbess. So in a way, carrots can improve your eyesight.
Sugar does not make kids hyper.
Before you say "I'm a parent, and I can promise you it does", consider when kids have plenty of sugar. Birthday parties, exciting events, etc. *That* makes them spin up.
If sugar was a direct cause of making kids hyper, why can they sit on a couch mashing candy for four hours while watching Frost on repeat. There's also the fact that kids are... You know, kids. Sometimes they're activated, sometimes they're not. Regardless of sugar intake.
The right side of your brain is for creativity and the left is for logic. If I see one more psych student with that sticker I’m gonna lose it
In my country there's still a lot of people believing that first period blood is good for skin, like if u spread it on your face they say it will make your skin clear and you will not have acne if u did. It's dumb, stupid & disgusting.
Taking hot showers is good for sunburn. Helps draw out the stinging. When I was young I would always get sunburnt on vacation my dad always told me to take hot showers. I suffered through the pain thinking it would help. Turns out it’s the worst thing you can do.
Every once in a blue moon I stumble across someone who believes that cabbits are a thing. Some people genuinely believe that a cat and rabbit can bang and produce viable offspring, but anyone with an ounce of common sense should understand that it would be impossible.
If your eyes stayed open during a sneeze, those mf's would pop right out
But this actually has happened on rare occasions e.g. the case of a 44-year-old male published in Emergency Physicians Monthly, December 2015.
sex can make your vagina loose
... but only if it is with different guys... With the same guy it doesn't get loose. Although after you have given birth then it's like throwing a sausage down the hallway for the guy. *eye roll* I wonder, if the people coming up with bs like this ever had sex with a vagina involved somehow
If I get a raise at work, I’ll pay more taxes and just make *less* money!
This is not a sure thing. But in certain situations it could happen in the US tax system.
Having the overhead light on in a car while driving is illegal.
This isn’t specifically illegal. But it could be considered Distracted Driving, which in the US legal system is defined as “any non-driving activity a motorist engages in that has the potential to distract him or her from the primary task of driving”. Distracted Driving may be classified as either a moving violation or a criminal misdemeanor depending on what jurisdiction you are in. To be realistic about it, you probably wouldn’t get in any trouble for having the light on unless you got into an accident.
That pissing in a pool makes the water go purple.
I was told as a kid if I touched myself I’d go blind. I used to love telling that to optometrists, until laser eye surgery completely ruined that joke!
There was also the myth that touching yourself would cause hair to grow on the palms of your hands.
That you should give cats milk.
Some cats like a taste of it, but not entire big bowls. Our cat, Bazzy, who passed away a year ago at age 19 1/2 (we adopted him when he was 9 weeks old), was partial to a little bit of half and half in the morning. Milk was too thin, and cream was too thick, but half and half was just right. He never has digestive or other issues from the thimble full I gave him, but the fats in it made his fur incredibly soft. As long as it isn’t poisonous (it’s not like I fed him chocolate or anything fatal for a cat, and he ate regular cat food), anything in moderation should be OK. I miss him terribly. RIP, dearest Bazzy!
Putting something still warm in the fridge will cause it to go bad.
Leaving it out actually allows bacteria to grow faster and putting it in the fridge will reduce the time it spends in the danger zone. Although, it should be put separate from other fridge items, as it can unnecessarily warm those items and potentially reduce their lifespans.
Putting warm food in the fridge acts as a radiator, heating up the fridge which can possibly ruin the other food in there, particularly if it's large.
That eating after a certain time causes weight gain, when in fact it has more to do with what time you go to sleep and not a specific time of the day
More like how much sleep you get, and how overall healthy your lifestyle is. Plus the fact that most dinner food is heavier and has more calories, and many people follow it up with with a sweet dessert.
That you won't get hired or taken seriously with piercings or tattoos. I've held a few jobs over the last 15 years that actually took your qualifications more seriously than your appearance.
S**t, even when I got my first adult job at age 20 as a medical filing clerk, I got my tongue pierced a few months later & my manager was like "you never had a lisp before" (tongue was swollen so I couldn't talk without a lisp) & when I showed her, she only said "hopefully the patients don't see it" & that was it.
I'm tired of ppl saying these things make you unprofessional. I respect those who choose to get tatted or pierced in unseen locations but stop telling ppl it's taboo. Times are changing & appearance does not necessarily translate into one's personality or intelligence
The reason astronauts float on the International Space Station isn't because of low gravity, they're would actually be 90% of Earth's gravity but its actually because its in a perpetual free fall.
The movement of the space station causes it to be falling toward the next point past the Earth horizon. The fact that it doesn't fall is one of the ways we know Earth is not flat.
Not a myth exactly, but more of a misconception.
Yawning is not because of boredom or for getting more oxygen to your brain. The latest research points to yawning assisting in lowering brain temperature.
Don't eat before swimming
i have eaten *in* the pool. swam about, bobbed, and dived. no issue. This also applies to swimming in the sea. check these tips out if unsure how to swim from Englan to France (and eat snacks on the way) http://cspf.co.uk/nutrition
My dad insisted that if you didn't dry your hair immediately after getting out of the shower you would "catch your death of cold." As far as he was concerned, letting your hair stay damp would immediately give you a respiratory illness. Similarly, putting away dishes that weren't completely dry would putrify and poison someone. I know germ theory wasn't very well understood when he was a lad, but water was basically the end of all things as we know it to him.
Losing 90% heat through your head
Well it's *sort* of correct, but only by virtue of the fact that obviously you'll lose more heat through uncovered parts of your body rather than any anatomy-specific reason, and having an uncovered head is more likely than any other body part; if you don't wear a hat then sure, most of your heat loss will come from your head, but if you wore a hat and no pants most of the heat loss will come from your legs.
That Nightshade is a poisonous plant.
The European variety of nightshade, Belladonna, is poisonous, however there are other varieties that are completely edible. When European explorers went over to the Americas and Africa, faced with the contradiction of seeing indigenous peoples eating nightshade stalks and leaves as a part of their diet, came to the conclusion that it must be because the indigenous people were closer to animals than humans.
To this day people still believe that Black nightshade is a poisonous plant— entirely rooted in racism, scholars across generations have defended this lie.
That women’s menstrual cycles sync up with each other after being around each other for a long enough time.
Years of this happening to me with women I'm close with. We're both PMSing together and we want to kill each other and everyone else. I know science says it's not true, but my experience says something different.
Checking Halloween candy for whatever the hell it was checked for - razors, drugs, whatever the myth was
It stemmed from a real story. There was a man who killed his son in 1970-something by lacing his halloween candies with poison to get an insurance money. He also gave poisoned candies to few other children (if I remember correctly, they all survived) to cover his tracks, thus causing a big mass hysteria and starting a myth which lives to this day.
That removing a gray hair from your head will cause ten more to grow back.
Right? LOL because if it were true balding people would gladly pluck the grays to get two more.
Load More Replies... How do you add more? That spinach has an amazing amount of iron. Like all dark leafy greens it has some, but not a lot. Someone mad an error with a decimal point many years ago and some textbooks picked it up and for years it was taught.
That removing a gray hair from your head will cause ten more to grow back.
Right? LOL because if it were true balding people would gladly pluck the grays to get two more.
Load More Replies... How do you add more? That spinach has an amazing amount of iron. Like all dark leafy greens it has some, but not a lot. Someone mad an error with a decimal point many years ago and some textbooks picked it up and for years it was taught.
