I’ve noticed a surprising number of articles about food in the Daily Post lately. Rosa Chavez at the Senior Center wrote about food yesterday, and a Denver restaurant owner wrote about the need to support restaurant workers. A few days ago, I noticed an article by Vanessa Skean about growing food locally in Archuleta County, and I see she has another one today.
And here I am, writing about food.
Because food is important. In more ways than one.
There’s hardly anything a universally comforting as a nutritious, homecooked meal. But even a bag of potato chips can be comforting, or a chocolate chip cookie, despite the empty calories.
And since we’re on the subject, we can consider Coca-Cola, also a source of empty calories.
But fewer empty calories, thanks to the popularity of the much smaller, 7.5 ounce cans.
From the Coca-Cola website:
Today, about 44% of our sparkling soft drink brands come in packages of 8.5 ounces or less.
The only problem is, you now have to drink two cans to get the same amount of empty calories as in a regular size can.
According to British pharmacist Niraj Naik, the intense sweetness of Coca-Cola should make a person vomit as soon as it enters the body. However, the phosphoric acid in the beverage dulls the sweetness, enabling people to keep the drink down, so it can cause blood sugar levels to increase dramatically. The liver then turns the high amounts of sugar into fat.
Within 45 minutes, the production of dopamine has increased, stimulating the reward centers of the brain, comparable to the effects of heroin. The dopamine triggers a person’s urge to drink another can, which is a useful urge if you bought the little 7.5 ounce cans.
I came across a scientific study about childhood obesity because I knew I was going to write about food, and there’s a theoretical connection between food (or food-like products) and obesity. Obesity involves excess fat, something the liver makes from Coca-Cola.
The study, conducted by the International Study of Childhood Obesity, Lifestyle and the Environment scientists, bore this title:
Relationship between lifestyle behaviors and obesity in children ages 9–11: Results from a 12-country study
These scientists studied 6,000 children, to assess the “behavioral risk factors” including “nocturnal sleep duration, moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA), television viewing (TV time), and healthy and unhealthy diet pattern scores.”
They found that obese children tend to sit around watching TV instead of climbing trees, playing football and soccer, or just generally running around for no reason at all. Their conclusion was, the children were fat because they didn’t run around.
But a more reasonable conclusion is, that they sat around because they were fat. No one wants a fat kid on their soccer team. (Ask me how I know.)
This phrase was included just below the title of the study:
Funding agencies: This research was supported by The Coca-Cola Company.
As noted, food is important. (Also, food-like products are important.) Food generates massive profits for corporations like The Coca-Cola Company, so they can pay scientists to convince us that the reason we’re fat is because we’re not getting enough exercise.
Food also makes us feel good, when we eat it. And Lord knows, we need reasons to feel good these days.