Commercial snack foods. The bane of dieting, right? Yet so inviting. But we are told they are bad for tryglicerides, those are the real problem, aren't they?. Triglycerides are composed of a molecule of glycerol with three fatty acids attached. (Incidentally, 'Three Fatty Acids' would be a cool name for a rap group). Yet you can look at a website that produces not snack food, but roll machinery and other bakery equipment, for example, and still get your salivary glands going, you can almost smell the warm sponge cake as it rolls out from the machine in a continuous carpet of pure trygliceride wonder. So are these molecules really to be considered as the Worst Possible Thing to Put in You? What do triglicerides do anyway? Triglycerides provide the body with calories to burn for energy (about 60% of our energy needs at rest), and body fat acts as a shock absorber and as an insulator. So, basically, when your trygliceride levels are too high, your body stacks them up as extra padding. Nothing strange, really, that's what the human body's been doing ever since we were only covered by hair and had to prepare for a long winter. We might have evolved technologically, but our metabolisms still work much the same way they 20,000 years ago. That doesn't mean all our ancestors were obese blimps that rivalled with the mammoths. No way. Another factor whose function was precisely that of counterbalancing the accumulation of tryglicerides was in effect. This important factor has recently disappeared from our modern culture, and that is the main cause of the success and prolification of fat. This factor was called Muscular Movement. Think of how little we move with respect to, say, three hundred years ago. Not everybody had a horse back then and walking was the most widespread means of transportation. By walking I mean walking for miles, not just down the block for a bagel. What about the diets back then? Did they have those horrible sounding chemicals we read as surrogates in 'sugar free' and 'fat-free' products? My guess is that if someone mentioned Aspartame back then he would be immediately tried for witchcraft. Incidentally, if you check out recent reviews on artificial sweeteners, you might change your opinion on what the Worst Possible Thing to Put in You is. No, in those good old days dairy products, teeming with fatty molecules, were all the rage, but people moved their muscles, and by doing so they would burn the excess energy. So, let's not demonize snack foods, as long as they're made with healthy ingredients, they're perfectly all right, just as long as you take note of the extra energy you're storing and use it, instead of padding yourselves for the winter. A twenty minute jog will do miracles. Any longer and you will actually start burning away some of the older padding. Walk to work, use the stairs and move your muscles, reward yourselves with a snack, It's actually good for your body to go through the energy burning process, as long as your snacking and your excercise balance each other. |
