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Everything in moderation.
It’s a hopeful concept that the health nuts, medical professionals, and junk food pushers have been force-feeding greedy Americans for decades. The idea is that no matter how wrong something is for us on a nutritional level, we can always enjoy it in small amounts and not completely rob ourselves of the sins we crave. After all, we only live once, but we still want to eat and drink without fear of a heart attack. Well, wouldn’t you know, we’ve been fooled again.
Two separate studies published earlier this week show that consuming alcoholic drinks and fried foods, even in moderation, can wreak havoc on our hearts. It’s a hard blow to anyone who, like me, chased some leftover buffalo wings with three beers this morning during breakfast. Hey, don’t judge. You would have done it too if you weren’t fired for walking into Accountants R ‘Us with beer breath and wing farts.
While no one really has the illusion that devouring heaps of gas station chicken, chips, and other fat-soaked slopocalypse fare is good for them, we’ve had a gentlemen’s accord with this stuff over the years. As long as we promise to eat fried crap only occasionally, it won’t clog our arteries or kill us. We tried our best to keep up our end of the bargain – raw food only at sporting events, boys’ nights, and cheat days – but someone returned along the way.
A new study published in the journal Heart believes that consuming small portions of fried food is enough to extinguish the heart. For every half cup of fried food a guy eats, researchers say, his risk of heart failure increases by 12 percent. Given the culinary lardassery we were all likely working on over the weekend, it’s conceivable that any of us could die before we finish 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 as a jar of coconut oil. It’s actually an inexpensive fat widely used in the food industry, one manufactured by adding hydrogen to vegetable oil to create a flavorful, gelatinous blob that helps preserve food and give it more song. Trans fats can be found in just about all processed foods we eat. But wait, hasn’t the government banned this rotten stuff? The answer is yes. Well almost. Some deadline extensions, not to mention loopholes, have allowed food companies across America to continue adding trans fats to food products to some extent.
“The FDA allows companies to label a food as” 0 grams “of trans fats if a serving of the food contains less than 0.5 grams,” CNN said.
While fats are an essential part of a healthy diet, trans fats can increase bad cholesterol and decrease good. They don’t break down that easily in the body, so they get stuck there and cause problems. According to the American Heart Association, anyone who is concerned about heart damage but doesn’t 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 should also be more careful with drinking.
Health experts come by about every year and tell us something different about how much alcohol we can safely consume. It used to be three drinks, then it was two. Last year, they said one drink a day was the right amount to prevent liver disease, cancer, and heart-related problems. But that turned out to be a lot of BS too.
The new study shows that just a single alcoholic drink per day can put people at risk of developing an abnormal heart rhythm called atrial fibrillation (afib). This condition usually starts as a fast heart rate – complete with symptoms ranging from shortness of breath to fatigue – but it can lead to more serious problems, such as heart failure and stroke. Scientists say it is no longer necessary to go all out Jim Morrison to tear the heart to pieces. Moderate consumption – and I want to remind you that this is just one drink in a 24-hour period – puts people at a 16 percent higher risk of heart problems than non-drinkers. When consuming two drinks, the number rises to around 28 percent. In all likelihood, I am more than halfway in the grave after my morning meal.
The good news is I survived long enough to finish this column. Oof! Maybe I was just lucky, or maybe there is more to man’s mortality than his eating and drinking habits. Think back to all the wicked marks you’ve made in this world over the years – the drunkenness, the overindulgence – and you will see clearly that science is not always against you. We should all be dead by now. But as I type my final thoughts for this column – hoping the data won’t catch up with me and my neighbors see me lying across the keyboard with buffalo sauce-smeared fingers – rest assured that death is on the way, somehow or another. other. Maybe booze and fried foods are bad. All you can do is do your best.
As for me, I still subscribe to the “moderation is key” theory. No, it might not save us from all the raging buttocks the world brings, but it adds a little fun to an otherwise chaotic life. Why else would a man start his day with a plate of fried chicken and beer? I’ll get the good while I can, and so will you. Who knows, tomorrow your heart could explode. The end.