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Everything in moderation.
It is a promising concept that health fanatics, doctors and junk food dealers have forced gluttonous Americans for decades. The idea is that, regardless of how wrong something is for us on a nutritional level, we can always enjoy it in small quantities and not totally deprive ourselves of the sins we crave. After all, we live only once, but we still want to eat and drink without living in fear of a heart attack. Well, you wouldn’t know, we’re screwed again.
Two separate studies published earlier this week show that consuming alcoholic beverages and fried foods, even in moderation, can wreak havoc on our hearts. It’s a violent blow to anyone who, like me, chased a few buffalo wings left over with three beers this morning for breakfast. Hey, don’t judge. You would have done that too if you hadn’t been fired for joining Accountants R ‘Us with beer breath and wing farts.
While no one is really under the illusion that devouring heaps of gas station chicken, fries, and other fat-soaked kitchens from the slopocalypse is good for them, we have a gentlemen’s agreement with these things over the years. As long as we promise to eat fried shit every now and then, it won’t clog our arteries and kill us. We did our best to fulfill our part of the deal – just eating crap during sporting events, boys’ nights and cheating days – but someone disowned along the way.
A new study published in the journal Heart he finds that eating small portions of fried food is enough to put his heart at risk of being destroyed. For every half cup of fried food a guy eats, the researchers say, his chance of heart failure increases by 12%. Considering the culinary mess we all probably practiced over the weekend, it is conceivable that any one of us could drop dead before finishing this article.
But not me, not yet.
The biggest problem with fried foods is trans fats. No, this is not a piece of butter that identifies itself as a jar of coconut oil. In fact, it is an inexpensive fat widely used throughout the food industry, manufactured with the addition of hydrogen to vegetable oil to create a gelatinous and tasty ball that helps to preserve food and make them more angry. Trans fats can be found in almost every processed food we eat. But wait, didn’t the government ban this rotten thing? The answer is yes. Well, almost. Some extensions of the term, not to mention loopholes, have allowed food companies across America to continue adding trans fats to food products to some degree.
“The FDA allows companies to label a food as” 0 grams “of trans fats if a portion of the food contains less than 0.5 grams,” according to CNN.
While fats are an essential part of a healthy diet, trans fats can increase bad cholesterol and decrease good cholesterol. They don’t break easily in the body, so they just stay there causing problems. According to the American Heart Association, anyone concerned about heart problems but does not want to give up fried foods should cook with canola and olive oil. They are much healthier.
Another study, this one from the European Society of Cardiology, suggests that we also need to be more careful with drinking.
Health experts come every year or so and tell us something different about how much alcohol we can safely consume. It used to be three drinks, then two. Last year, they said one drink a day was the right amount to avoid problems with liver disease, cancer and heart-related problems. But that ended up being a lot of nonsense too.
The new study shows that just a single alcoholic drink a day can put people at risk of developing an abnormal heart rhythm called atrial fibrillation (afib). This condition usually starts as a fast heartbeat – complete 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 make Jim Morrison to tear the heart to pieces. Moderate drinking – and let me remind you that it’s just one drink in a 24-hour period – puts people 16% more at risk for heart problems than non-drinkers. The number rises to the neighborhood of 28% with the consumption of two drinks. Apparently, I’m more than halfway to the grave after my morning meal.
The good news is that I survived long enough to finish this column. Wow!! Maybe I was just lucky, or maybe there is more to man’s mortality than his eating and drinking habits. Just think of all the depraved marks you have made in this world over the years – drunkenness, over-indulgence – and you will see clearly that science is not always against you. We should all be dead by now. But as I write my final remarks for this column – hoping like hell that the data doesn’t reach me and my neighbors find me lying on the keyboard with buffalo-stained fingers – make sure that death is coming, in a way or other. Maybe drink and fried food are bad. All you can do is your best.
As for me, I still subscribe to the “moderation is the key” theory. No, it may not save us from all the wild screams that the world can bring, but it does provide some fun in a chaotic life. Why else would a man start the day with a plate of fried chicken and beer? I’m enjoying the time I can, and so should you. Who knows, tomorrow your bloody heart might explode. The end.