Potato chips have two of my favorite food groups–salt and fat. Last week I got a handful of potato chips with a hot dog at one of those Vacation Bible School lunches. It was my heavenly reward. Sitting there, at a picnic table, surrounded my screaming children, I was delighted to be munching on those salty, greasy chips. I wish there was a way I could live on potato chips; but alas, my body was not made to allow that. I could eat a whole bag of chips if it was in my house. And if I didn’t care how I felt the next day.
You see, my body cannot handle potato chips in a very large quantity. Same thing with donuts. Donuts have two of my favorite food groups–sugar and fat. Do you see a pattern here? A pattern of ruin and damnation? My life could be so lovely if only my metabolic engineering would cooperate. Just as one cannot pour sugar in your car’s gas tank and expect to go anywhere, neither can one pour sugar, fat, and salt into your stomach and expect to get very far down the road. Although it feels so good when eating that stuff, I feel so lousy later on. And I really like to feel good.
At the end of the week of bad eating, I had a sore throat. At least the beginning of a sore throat. I gargled with hot water and started sucking on the echinacea-laden throat lozenges my daughter had. There was no zinc in the house, though. I grumbled my way through the day with the scratchy throat, made the three hour drive home, and immediately started with my own zinc and echinacea treatment as soon as I hit the door of my house. By Sunday I was feeling fine and continue to do so today. I’m also eating better.
So, there you have it. Eat badly and you might enjoy the sensation for a moment, but the evils of salt, fat, and sugar will catch up with you. Eat healthy.
