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Everything in moderation.
It’s a hopeful concept that health enthusiasts, medical professionals, and junk food vendors have been force-feeding gluttonous Americans for decades. The idea is that no matter how nutritionally something is wrong with us, we can still enjoy it in small amounts and not completely deprive ourselves of the sins we dream of. After all, we only live once, but we still want to eat and drink without living in fear of a heart attack. Well wouldn’t you know, we’ve been screwed up again.
Two separate studies published earlier this week show that consuming alcoholic beverages and fried foods, even in moderation, can wreak havoc in our hearts. It’s a blow to anyone like me who chased leftover buffalo wings with three beers this morning for breakfast. Hey, don’t judge. You would have done that too if you hadn’t been fired for breaking into Accountants R ‘Us with beer and wing farts.
While no one really deludes themselves that devouring mounds of gas station chicken, fries and other grease-soaked slopocalypse dishes is good for them, we’ve been under a gentlemen’s deal with this product. over the years. As long as we promise to only eat fried shit every now and then, it won’t clog our arteries or kill us. We did our best to stick to our end of the bargain – only eating raw during sporting events, guys’ nights, and cheat days – but someone backed down along the way.
A new study published in the journal Heart finds that consuming small portions of fried foods is enough to put the heart at risk for suffocation. For every half a cup of fried food a guy eats, researchers say, his chances of heart failure increase by 12%. Considering the culinary lardassery that we probably all got into over the weekend, it’s conceivable that one of us could drop dead before we finish this article.
Not me, however, not yet.
The biggest problem with fried foods is trans fats. No, it’s not a stick of butter that identifies itself as a jar of coconut oil. It is actually an inexpensive fat widely used in the food industry, a fat that is made by adding hydrogen to vegetable oil to create a tasty, gelatinous ball that helps preserve foods and gives them more zang. Trans fats are found in just about every processed food we eat. But wait, hasn’t the government banned this rotten stuff? The answer is yes. Well almost. Certain deadline extensions, not to mention loopholes, have allowed food companies across America to continue to add trans fats to food products to some extent.
“The FDA allows companies to label a food as ‘0 grams’ of trans fat if a serving of the food contains less than 0.5 grams,” according to CNN.
While fat is an essential part of a healthy diet, trans fat can raise bad cholesterol and lower good cholesterol. They don’t break down very easily in the body, so they linger there causing problems. According to the American Heart Association, anyone who is worried about heart damage, but doesn’t want to give up fried foods, should cook with canola and olive oil instead. They are much healthier.
Another study, that of the European Society of Cardiology, suggests that we also need to be more careful with alcohol.
Health experts come in every year or so and tell us something different about how much alcohol we can safely drink. Before, it was three drinks, then two. Last year, they said a drink a day was the right amount to avoid problems with liver disease, cancer and heart problems. But it also turned out to be a huge load of BS.
The new study shows that just one alcoholic drink a day can put people at risk of developing an abnormal heart rhythm called atrial fibrillation (afib). This condition usually begins with a rapid heartbeat – with symptoms ranging from shortness of breath to fatigue – but it can lead to more serious problems, like heart failure and stroke. Scientists say it is no longer necessary to go full-fledged Jim Morrison to tear the heart to pieces. Moderate drinking – and let me remind you that it’s only one drink in a 24-hour period – puts people 16% more at risk for heart problems than non-drinkers. The number rises to around 28 percent with the consumption of two drinks. Obviously, I’m more than halfway to the grave after my morning meal.
The good news is that I survived long enough to complete this column. Phew! Maybe I just got lucky, or maybe there’s more to man’s mortality than his eating and drinking habits. Just think of all the depraved marks you’ve made in this world over the years – drunkenness, overindulgence – and you’ll clearly see that science isn’t always against you. We should all be dead by now. But as I type in my final thoughts for this column – hoping like hell the data doesn’t catch up with me and my neighbors find me slumped on the keyboard with buffalo stained fingers – rest assured death is coming, one way or another. Maybe alcohol and fried foods are bad. Everything you can do is the best you can.
As for me, I still subscribe to the “moderation is the key” theory. No, it might not save us from all the wild screaming the world can bring, but it does provide a bit of fun in an otherwise chaotic life. Why else would a man start his day with a plate of fried chicken and beer? I get the good while I can, and you should too. Who knows, tomorrow your frightened heart might explode. The end.
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