Canadian and Mexican traditional wisdom

I’ve made this a topic of conversation lately with some of my Mexican friends, so I thought I should share it with a wider audience.

A few weeks ago we were standing around after a worship service on a Sunday morning.  One of the young guys (Alberto) at the church had a little bowl of ice cream of sherbet or something, and he offered some to Nathanael.  Nathanael, of course, was happy to have some.

A few minutes later I was chatting with Alberto and happened to mention that Nathanael had been sick and was just getting over it.

Alberto’s eyes opened wide and this look of horror came over him.

Why?

I don’t know about you (fellow Canadians), but when I was young and got sick and had a sore throat, one of the best things to have was ice cream.  Ah, soothe the cool, burning inflammation with that nice smooth cold creamy stuff.  Great idea!  Anything cold on the throat felt great.

In stark contrast, here in Mexico the common belief is that cold is the worst thing for you.  In fact, it might have made you sick in the first place.

Canadians actually stand between two extremes.  People from the US typically like to fill their glass with ice.  Mexicans, on the other hand, will often have no ice at all.  That cold could make you sick!  Canadians typically avoid either extreme in this case.  But from what I’ve seen, when a Canadian is sick they’re more likely to have something cold.

Poor Alberto thought that he had made the problem worse by giving sick Nathanael ice cream.

Who’s right?  I’ll leave the doctors and scientists to check it out.  Meanwhile, I don’t eat ice cream as much as I used to, since it’s so hard to find any with actual "cream" as a major ingredient!