Beginning of the Road

By Dane Sorensen

August 1, 1996

 

Americans have great instincts.  For years we have been enjoying our beer, wine, cheeseburgers, pizza and chocolate.  For almost as long, killjoys have been saying we are killing ourselves with fat, sugar, caffeine and other biological time bombs.

Well, the laugh is on these neurotic do-gooders.  All their organic supplements are the poisons you should avoid.  Beta Carotene was supposed to keep you cancer free.  Bran was going to make you live a thousand years.  New research has shown both are not cornucopias for youth.

It turned out that you would have to eat your weight in bran to get any benefits in lowering your cholesterol.  Beta Carotene, the cancer fighting agent is actually a double agent.  Too much of this stuff increases your chances of cancer.

It seems that moderation is the key to true well being.  New research suggests a single glass of beer or wine will do you and your heart good.  Be sure to include pizza on your menu, the tomato sauce is a cancer fighting agent.  Cheeseburgers also have some secret ingredient that is supposed to do you good.  My drug of choice, chocolate, contains chemicals that lower tooth decay.  How come Crest has not come out with a chocolate toothpaste?  Ah, at last I can invent something and become a millionaire. 

Americans keep living longer and longer every year.  Every year the fast food industry grows.  I think there is a connection.  People who enjoy life, laugh, and eat delicious food live longer.  I wonder if anyone has researched if all those tofu/rice cake eaters are really living longer or does it just seem longer?  Waiting in a dentist’s office for a lifetime would feel like two lifetimes.  Eating tasteless, bland food fits that definition in my book.

Caffeine in a natural substance in tea, coffee, and chocolate that has been under attack for over thirty years.  Only now is it finally recovering from all this fuss.  Indulgent coffee houses are springing up all over the land.  In Ely, there are at least four places where you can get espresso.  Some genius in Chicago has invented “Water Jo.”  It is pure water fortified with caffeine.  It is a big hit at the Chicago Board of Trade.  Now those traders will probably live longer than any aerobics instructor.  High impact aerobic instructors will end up with a double hip replacement before they are 40.  Whereas those commodity traders will enjoy a healthy elevated heart rate without any of the messy side effects like profuse sweating. 

Actually, I belong to the school of thought that believes your heart is guaranteed by the manufacturer for only so many heart beats.  To exercise too much only draws down your bank account of heart beats.  Exercise should be very moderate in my book.  In the natural course of raising kids, working, maintaining a house, enjoying the lakes and woods, you should get enough exercise. 

If there is a killer activity out there, it is watching TV.  You can just feel the sludge build up in your body by sitting at the TV for more than an hour.  By law they should broadcast really bad shows after every good TV show to force people to get up and do something else.  Maybe, old “I Dream of Jeannie” episodes would do the trick?

I would like to make some daring predictions on the next health food to be discovered.  I predict Butterscotch Dilly Bars will be lauded as a high calcium food.  Wild rice soup will cure gout.  Buffalo burgers will cure baldness.  Shagawa Lake water well cure impotence.  It is just a matter of time before the world realizes how Ely is the health capital of the world.

Tonight, celebrate your freedom to eat good healthy American food like pizza and cheeseburgers.  Enjoy a brew – from either hops or coffee beans.  Enjoy your bad healthy habits and live a long happy life in spite of the National Organization to Save the World from Salt, Chocolate, Fat, Cheese, Beer, Beef, Eggs, Popcorn, Sugar, Coffee, Ice Cream, Bacon, Butter.

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