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Medicine And Vegetables Really Do Taste Worse When You're A Kid

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Remember how bad everything that wasn't candy and Cookie Crisp tasted when you were a kid? You'd have rather transformed your larynx into a shuriken than choke down so much as a single drop of cough syrup, and things like spinach and Brussels sprouts were boiled manifestations of the evil currently living beneath your bed. Meanwhile, the adults of the household gleefully slurped that shit down while insisting that it was good for you and promising that they would lock you in your room for the night if you didn't finish every steaming, hideous bite that they had so generously placed before you.

But that's immaturity, right? You demanded nothing but candy all day every day because you were a kid, and kids are bratty and stupid. You also wanted to go to school dressed like Batman. All of your opinions were bullshit.

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"Oh, we should get a unicorn to cure grandma's cancer? Thanks for the medical tip, Katie."

But according to science, you weren't being whiny. Well, not just being whiny, anyway. Some things simply taste worse to kids. See, kids are born with mouths like an audience at Bonnaroo -- they're positively filthy with taste buds, each one scrambling to get a better view of the next act (and also to lick it). By the time we're adults, however, around two-thirds of those taste buds have bailed to look for a nearby Waffle House, partly due to our tendency to start doing things like smoking and enjoying Starbucks beverages at temperatures approaching "the Earth's core."

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Your Body Will Make Room For Dessert (Even If You Were "Too Full" To Finish Your Vegetables)

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Every kid in history has pulled this trick. Little Susie says she can't eat one more bite of the nutritious meal Mom or Dad painstakingly prepared (of which she has eaten precisely one bite). But the very moment pie comes into play, she's magically ravenous again. So which is more likely: That children have a second stomach reserved especially for dessert, or that they're spoiled little brats who lie so that 90 percent of their dinner will be in pie form?

According to science, it's closer to the first one.

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"We have a backup pancreas for insulin too."

2

Reading/Watching The Same Things Over And Over Again Is Good For You

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Sucking On An Injury Helps It Heal

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Anyone who was ever a human child remembers getting a cut or a splinter and feeling the immediate impulse to plop the affected area of skin into your mouth, because sucking on a wound inexplicably made it feel better, and we all secretly love the taste of blood. Hell, maybe you still do that now.

Well, though your mother probably demanded that you stop doing it immediately, research has revealed that drooling all over our wounds fast-forwards the healing process, like Wolverine climbing into one of those face-repairing beds from Elysium.

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So start sucking as much that movie did.

Scientists created artificial wounds in two separate Petri dishes, and then treated each with a different solution. One was bathed in human saliva, the other in a plain isotonic fluid. Less than a day later, the slobbery sample had almost completely mended its wound, while the control sample had taken a year off to backpack through Europe to see if "healing" was what it truly wanted to do.

After running the super-saliva through their radly-named "wound model," Dutch scientists identified a compound in our spit -- histatin -- that dramatically ramps up the speed of healing. So, tetanus aside, cramming that sliced finger into your mouth was the exact healthcare step to take back when you fell off the swing set during recess.

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It doesn't do shit against cooties, though, so make sure you stay vaccinated.

On a similar note, shitty Little League coaches worldwide will be happy to hear that the seemingly negligent childhood remedy of "rub some dirt on it!" has some real-world merit, despite outwardly appearing to have all of the wisdom of shitting into the wind. While examining treatments described in ancient medical texts, researchers at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute recently stumbled upon a family of antibacterial clay capable of killing pathogens which range from simple old E. coli clear on up to MRSA, otherwise known as the antibiotic-resistant bacterium currently staging an uprising against humanity.

While dirtying up a wound to help it heal seems entirely counterintuitive, the treatment takes advantage of the absorptive characteristics of clay and Mother Nature's rich cocktail of metallic ions to seal out pathogens, absorb devitalized tissue, and deliver devastating antibacterial doses that would humble even the most flagrant Purell junkie. Though this admittedly involves special healing dirt, and not some random clump out of your back yard that a squirrel might have ejaculated on minutes earlier.

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"Might have?"

So yeah, probably better to suck on it until you can get a Band-Aid.

Jeff Sloan accidentally wrote "Happy Broth Day!" on a Facebook wall five years ago, and has been pretending to be a soup enthusiast ever since. Support his quest for redemption on Twitter and Facebook. Laura H. has opted out of growing up. Follow her on Twitter. Abraham is a Mexican lawyer. When he isn't doing law stuff, he writes comedy! You can say hi to him on Twitter, or laugh at his attempts at becoming an artist on his DeviantArt.

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