WE’RE ALL GUNNA DIE. ENJOY!
It turns out there are only so many Everything Is Killing You articles I can read before I stop giving a crap about any of it.
Yesterday, I reached that point.
The latest edition of New Scientist magazine claims that eating junk food may cause Alzheimer’s disease. So there you go. If you need yet another reason to worry every time you eat a biscuit or indulge in a packet of chips, you just had it handed to you. Each sugary, salty snack is bringing you closer to full blown dementia and a nursing home twilight spent trying to eat the pieces off a bingo board.
Don’t do it, Snow White! You know what happens…
The theory is that eating foods high in calories triggers insulin to be released into the bloodstream. Insulin then floods our brains and damages them in the same way that Alzheimer’s does.
At least, that’s what happened with a few rats in a laboratory. New Scientist charmingly refers to it as ‘brain diabetes’, which admittedly has a catchy ring to it but somewhat takes the shine off chowing down on a packet of chocolate buttons or a burger with the lot.
It’s official: we’re all going to die due to our failure to live a pure, perfect life.
I was already teetering on the edge of this conclusion after finding out earlier in the year that sugar is the greatest evil this planet has ever produced. According to the documentary I watched, there’s a good chance I’ve already done so much damage to every organ in my poor, withered body that my inner constitution is similar to that of Montgomery Burns.
This is on top of discovering, quite by accident, that non-stick frypans are giving me cancer. Of course that only happens if you overheat them or burn something in them but how many times have I done that? Pretty much every time I cook, that’s how often. I thought I was eating a chop, turns out I was chowing down on death.
And it gets worse. Even if I’d eaten that chop raw the pesticides on the grass the lamb ate would have entered my system and started their cancerous infiltration. And the animal fat from every meal I’ve ever eaten is probably still coursing through my arteries right now, stiffening them up to such an extent that even if I was unconscious I’d remain upright.
Whenever I turn on the television, jump online or glance at a newspaper, I discover something else that is doing me mortal harm. You know what I think is going to kill me? Trying to keep up with what’s going to kill me.
The mantra ‘everything in moderation’ has been replaced by the puritanical cry of ‘abstinence or death’.
| Page 1 of 2 | next >> |
30 Responses to this article
-
ally September 6, 2012
It is overwhelming the amount of warnings about what we eat and drink and all the different diseases they can cause. I am now researching which particular disease I don’t want and will base my diet around that – I can’t possible cover them all so i am just going to choose one to avoid!
-
Sharon September 6, 2012
Hooray for this. There’s no cure for death.
-
jo September 6, 2012
I feel the same about almost every moment I have spent basking in the sunshine. There are moments when I get freaked out about the damage I have done but honestly I love the sunshine!
-
Sarah September 6, 2012
I live in Alice springs, where it hasn’t rained in over 4 months, and I just found out I am vitamin d deficient! I’m taking supplements and trying to remember to deliberately get in the sun afteryears of sun smarts.everything is backwards.
-
Mrs Woog September 6, 2012
Well, I think we all know the answer to your question when it comes to me! *Swigs diet coke and scoffs twisties*
-
Melanie September 6, 2012
My Mum died over two years ago after a long battle with the hideous scourge of the mind and soul that is Alzheimer’s. Prior to this though she was quite the Pritikin fan….often her meals consisted of raw oats, bits of fresh fruit and disappointed taste-buds. I know mung beans are good to eat but personally I would rather enjoy a nice pizza and have cheese drip down my chin….it seems inevitable that I am going to end up trudging the halls of a nursing home on my zimmer frame anyway, given the gene pool. LIfe is short , grab it and enjoy every last morsel before the gravy train crashes and burns.
-
Dave September 6, 2012
Well I don’t drink, never smoked, don’t get sex, aren’t overweight, exercise regularly, don’t eat junk food but I still ended up with diabetes. If I had to eat just vegetables or some bland, special diet on top of all that I’d want to freaking kill myself >:(
-
Theresa September 6, 2012
Just for the record, compared to other larger fish like Swordfish, Bluefin Tuna, Perch, Shark ,Ling and Barramundi-
Salmon is low in Mercury along with prawns, Hake and canned tuna. -
sam September 6, 2012
I used to use bits of asbestos to draw on the pavement out side my house. The builders had left it lying on the street after the next door neighbours renovations.
-
The Huntress September 6, 2012
Haha, and I thought my son was the only one who steals the silver cachous and eats them by the packet. Ah, well, at least I now know he will be punished with a horrific disease and death.
-
susan September 6, 2012
The line ‘failure to live a pure and perfect life’ resonates with me, There certainly is a prevailing anxiety about achieving peculiar lifestyle targets that on inspection are ridiculous and largely unattainable and which simply leach a lot of joy from life.
I don’t want pure and flawless, I choose passion, joy, fun, kindness and adventure instead. -
Kris September 6, 2012
When I was a kid, we played with fibro – nasty, asbestos filled fibro. Fibro off-cuts were used as cricket bats, swords, guns, you name it. Not to mention the lead paint I apparently chewed off my cot when I was a baby. Boy am I in trouble. Throw in two grandparents with dementia, family history of heart disease, smoking for 20-odd years and a father who has recently survived his second stroke and it is a miracle I get up each morning!
-
Leesa September 6, 2012
I realised I was actually dead a while ago…doomed to many hideous cancers and such. I smoke, drank like a fish in my twenties, downed chips and shapes galore and baby oiled my skin for the gorgeous tan. I improved a bit when I had my son but last week I read that the food pyramid is apparently all wrong so I’ve doomed him too. Oh well! Gotta die of something!
-
Cate Pearce September 6, 2012
My grandparents and parents did everything wrong – lead paint, asbestos, too much red meat, too much salt, too much sugar, etc etc – and yet my 2 grans lived to 96 and 97, my Mum is 86 and my Dad will be 90 next week. I’ll keep enjoying life, I think.
-
Elaine September 6, 2012
Thanks for this article! Made me roar with laughter. I find going out for a coffee and a snack with some people is a ngihtmare, as they nit pick over every ingredient in every morsel. Increasingly I notice these adopted obsessions turn into crusades and you are being recruited. One week you’re having mung beans shoved down your throat and the next duck fat! As for people who jump on the anti-chemo consiparcy theories, when you mention a friend in treatment, I now gently request them to shut up. What seems to be accepted as the norm now, is that people jump in with all this shock horror advice, with out being asked! If you ask for someone’s opinion or advice, fine. You can take it or leave it. Why is it now OK for all this Holier than Thou attitude? As if you are being rescued from demonic forces? Recently I have begun to think there is a new psychological condition: Compulsively Obsessesed with Your Wellbeing Disorder
-
Julie September 6, 2012
I LOVE this article! I often wonder what all those health freaks will wonder when they are lying in hospital dying of nothing?
-
Kerry Cleary September 7, 2012
Don’t forget those nasty aluminium saucepans – they give us Alzheimer’s too.
-
Amanda September 7, 2012
If you switch to a low carbohydrate diet and eliminate bread, potato, rice and pasta ( complex sugars or starches) as well as sugar, you will lose weight and eliminate arterial damage and presumably then cerebral diabetes and Alzheimer’s. Carbohydrates are a non essential food group, we can survive easily without them and they were not present, or present in limited quantities in ancestral diets. It will take 10 years plus for evidence supporting this to emerge, but there are lots of hypotheses appearing on this in the medical literature. Get ahead of the curve, if you eat real food you won’t want all this junk, and you won’t have sugar induced food cravings and yo- yoing weight
-
Frankly Feisty September 7, 2012
Oh Amanda, what a load of hilarious old TOSH! Carbohydrates aren’t an essential food group?! Haven’t laughed so hard in, ummm, FOREVER.
Tell that to a diabetic.
Better tell the whole of Asia they’ve got it all wrong re: rice and the Italians they are poisoning themselves with all that pasta too. -
Rhoda September 7, 2012
Clean food is the latest movement – and get off the pretend bread. They can call it what they like but it’s not bread and should stop pretending it is. Same goes for most of what supermarkets sell. It’s digestible but it isn’t real food.
But yeah! You gotta live – you gotta enjoy life – most of it is in the genes anyway.
-
Amanda September 8, 2012
Frankly Feisty, I’m glad I provided you with a good laugh, but there is plenty of information out there indicating this is highly likely contributing to dementia. Yes, I would tell it to diabetics as well. We all know sugar is bad for diabetics,but carbohydrates break down immediately in the body into these very sugars, so why are they still in dietary recommendations! Any diabetic knows their blood glucose goes shooting up after a rice meal for instance. They are not essential, you might miss them, but you won’t die or develope a deficiency state without them. Anyone who has insulin resistance, which includes diabetes, should be avoiding them as they are at increased risk of developing disease related to this syndrome, which now increasingly looks like it includes Alzeimers as well. A small proportion of the population can metabolise carbs and sugar and never have a proem, or gain weight, maybe you are one of fhe lucky ones. Here are a few articles on carbohydrates, sugars and dementia.
http://www.drbriffa.com/2011/03/29/carbs-are-bad-news-for-the-brain/
http://people.csail.mit.edu/seneff/EJIM_PUBLISHED.pdf
The last article is a complex and interesting medical article. I refer you to the last sentence inthe conclusion for a summary of their findings. -
Frankly Feisty September 8, 2012
My husband is and has been an insulin dependent type1diabetic for over 20yrs. He is fit, healthy, and slim. He injects 4 times a day. Without insulin he will die. Without carbohydrates HE WILL DIE.
Your information is flawed, misleading and irresponsible.
There is not a qualified medical practitioner on the planet that would tell anyone, let alone an insulin dependent diabetic to stop eating carbohydrates. It is THE most important element of EVERY meal they have.
We eat an extremely healthy diet of fresh vegetables and some fruits, (we’re not big fruit lovers) lots of grains (carbohydrates) some dairy and occasional simple treats of home made ice cream, dark chocolate, apple pie, lemon tart. We always choose low Gi grains of which basmati rice is one. My husband never has rapid spikes, (unless he is unwell) usually just gradual increases to his sugar levels. But if he doesn’t have enough carbs he WILL crash and have a hypo.
I’m interested to know which ancestral diets you speak of. I know my ancestors (from Italy) have been eating wheat and other grain based home made foods for centuries. And are among some of the longest living and healthiest citizens on earth. And my cousins’ Chinese ancestors have been eating rice for CENTURIES and until our Western diet based on JUNK FOOD was introduced, they were also amongst the healthiest and longest living peoples on earth. -
Amanda September 8, 2012
I was speaking about paleolithic or hunter gatherer diets, which predate our modern agricultural grain and starch based diets. There is little or no evidence that these ancestral diets contained any significant amount of carbohydrate, certainly not at the levels of 40% plus of modern diets. Paleolithic humans were stronger and taller than modern humans, usually indications of health, and remains of long lived representatives have been found. I agree with you, your husband who is diabetic should definitely not just cut carbohydrates, as he has adjusted his insulin levels to the amount of carbohydrate in his diet. If you were going to consider this carbohydrates and insulin would need to be reduced in tandem and under CLOSE MEDICAL supervision to prevent hypoglycaemia, and i emphasise no one should do this on their own, but why not ask your doctor about it? there certainly are doctors writing about his approach, such as Dr John Briffa and Dr Mary Vernon ( links below) And after all, a low GI diet, which you advocate, is simply an attempt to reduce carbohydrate and blood sugar spikes in response to dietary starches and sugars, so why not logically take it further. No one is saying eliminate them completely, there are good carbohydrates in vegetables, but do we really need the glycaemic load of bread, flour, potatoes and rice etc in people who are already struggling to metabolise sugars. Moving on from diabetics, there is no reason any of the rest of us need to eat these foods, we are not adapted to them physiologically, and carbohydrates are not essential- we can manufacture our own sources of glucose( sugar) from protein in the diet. Here are some links to Drs Briffa and Vernon’s views on Diabetes.
http://www.drbriffa.com/2012/05/23/diabetics-appear-to-be-very-interested-in-low-carb-eating/http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/prediabetesanddiabetes/a/vernoninterview.htm
-
Amanda September 9, 2012
Let’s respectfully agree to disagree
-
Rhoda September 9, 2012
We’re the masters of our own destiny – give or take a gene or two. Silly to get obese or to eat junk food without a break though.
My DIL studied communications at the University of Amsterdam and I understand that the whole subject of food and the reporting of it comes in sound bytes only. You have to dig for the truth – it won’t be in the Sunday papers.
-
Kathrine October 4, 2012
Amanda why are you even commenting on site? Have you read the article? So you know what irony is?
-
Kathrine October 4, 2012
Amanda, my earlier comment to you didn’t sound rude in my head but it did when I read it. I apologise sincerely. Serves me right that it was full of typos.
-
