Hearts & Minds: Coke and salty fries – the miracle cure for a media migraine

It has long been a standing joke in the media. That one title can lead with the claim that even a glass or two of red wine can damage your health. Only for another to assert a mild indulgence is good for you. Sometimes, the contradiction may occur in the same newspaper, albeit a few days apart.

To be fair, both stories might be based on different sets of research, so it’s not the press’s fault.

What it really showed was that we humans love to be told that the naughty items we crave are actually alright. They are not so bad; it is okay, we don’t need to feel so guilty anymore. From the editors’ point of view such tales were bankers, guarantees of decent readership and pick up, often on what otherwise may be a slow news day – Mondays were always a firm favourite.

The latest candidate, however, pardon the phrase, takes the biscuit. The BBC (the BBC!) is breathlessly reporting that Coke and salty fries could be a miracle migraine cure.

Wow. Before anyone rushes to condemn the scientific institute that devoted time and effort to such a study as wasting public money or a grant that was surely meant for something a little more worthwhile - although Coca-Cola and potato suppliers will disagree – they need not bother searching. There wasn’t a boffin in a lab, not for this one. Instead, the assertion was made by a handful of people on TikTok, who say the combo works for them.

That is enough to stand up a feature by the BBC’s health and wellness correspondent running to 1409 words, complete with images of happy migraine suffering TikTokers who’ve beaten their agony, thanks to a, wait for it, ‘McMigraine Meal’.

 What does this tell us? That yes, there is indeed an enduring human compulsion to be assured that bad life choices contain an inner wisdom after all. That what others condemn as stupid isn’t, that you’re really being smart.

It’s proof, too, that such is the quest for clicks that serious academic imprimatur is no longer required.

It is also another sign of social media taking over and supplanting, that quack memes now inspire respect, among the mightiest of platforms. We are returning to how we once were, in the way beliefs were formed and spread.

Make that a large Coke and large fries.

Chris Blackhurst is one of the UK’s foremost business journalists. He was previously Editor of The Independent and City Editor of the Evening Standard.