Scary Stuff

My friend Stephanie and I have struggled with weighty issues for nigh on two decades now. While we both still have our dietary vices, she got one problem licked but good: she gave up beer and pizza. “Wow!” you exclaim. “That’s impressive!” you shout in near disbelief. “So how did she do it?” you ask. Was it amazing willpower? Perhaps the desire to lose weight finally beat out the desire to be happy? No. Nothing so high and noble. Instead, she was diagnosed with a pesky little gluten intolerance problem. In short, she could keep eating the pizza and drinking the beer as long as she didn’t mind slowly killing herself from the inside out.

Fear is a great motivator. The great motivator as some would put it. True, people are driven by positive forces and strong desires, but nowhere near the way they are when things get scary. When it comes down to, say, wanting to buy some concert tickets vs. not wanting to stay in that burning building, guess which one wins?

Natural forces aside, scaring is also something people like to do to other people. We, as a species, make scary movies, scary amusement park rides, and tax laws. While sometimes the end goal is to just have fun, in a way all of it boils down to control. If people are motivated by fear, and you have the ability to scare them, then by the law of transitivity, you can control people.

So what’s this got to do with food? Um … I can’t remember. I had a point when I started this thing, then I began to ramble.

Oh, I remember. I just read yet another article about “scary stuff” at the grocery store. You’ve seen them. “Don’t buy anything with benzopropylalanonic acid in it, because there was this one study on two rats where one was given this stuff and the other wasn’t, and the rat who took it died four hours before the other rat.” I’m fairly certain the authors of these articles really are trying to help when they give out dire, dire warnings about all the poisons polluting absolutely every dang thing that we eat, but after a while it all just turns into noise.

You see, I have this theory that if you combined every dietary warning ever invented, you might actually discover that we shouldn’t put anything into our bodies that isn’t water. Worse, that water must come from a very specific, very approved source, and be one hundred percent free of contaminants and taste. And cost five bucks a bottle.

My advice to you, then, is to just try to keep a level head. Most of us agree that anything (good or bad) in moderation probably isn’t life-threatening. I’m sure we also agree that anything (good or bad) in extreme excess probably isn’t intelligent either. If you happen to accidentally ingest a quarter gram of some trans fats, I don’t think your pancreas will explode within thirty seconds. If you accidentally ingest forty-eight hot dogs in a competitive eating event, you’ll live; but seriously, don’t ever do that again.

But if you do, then I’ve got a great article on nitrates you should read. I swear it’ll scare the beer and pizza right out of you.

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