-
- Refined Sugar Wars
© Christopher Kelsall - 2008 - All Rights Reserved.
As I understand it and because I may have made this up, for us long distance runners, each pound that we are over our optimum weight, we are penalized 2 seconds per-mile, per pound when racing. If my calculations stand up to the scrutiny and you happen to be in the unfortunate position of being say 10 pounds over optimum weight, you would race 20 seconds per-mile slower than your true capability. Multiply that by 6.2 miles and you have...well you do the math, I can't concentrate.
Speaking of weight, refined carbohydrates are after me. They are relentless in their pursuit. Everywhere I go, I am accosted by flour products gone wild, there is no escape from them. I spend my nights trying to avoid refined carbohydrate damnation by the dim stovetop light.
Forced to tip-toe into the kitchen, (because the family is sleeping), during unmerciful and slickly produced commercial breaks, which
command me to drink Coke, eat white bread and Oreos; I search for something healthy. By the time the first commercial is half finished, panicking, I give up the healthy food search and look for something in the newly adjusted category of 'not completely unhealthy'. Further into the cupboard I climb; my standards dropping, the deeper I go. Picture in your mind the historic movie Trainspotting and the legendary toilet dive, only I am slithering through dustbunnies.
I settle for the least unhealthy choice of what remains, potato chips prepared free of hydrogenated oil. On the packaging it states the following fine print: may have come in contact with human feces, during processing.
The problem with wholesome foods is in the packaging.
Bananas are a healthy choice, but they start to die the moment you pay for them. They come equipped with built in timers inserted by the Banana Republic Mafia (ironic I know). Apples don't pack well as they bruise too easily. Peeled carrots are handy except, if they get warm, they become slimy like slippery aerodynamic bars of soap - very dangerous projectiles.
I always felt that foods which contain the primary ingredient refined carbohydrates, mixed and packed with hydrogenated oil is the way to go, as I have no time to spare for preparation and I am game to play roulette with my health. However, recently I have experimented too much and now, sitting here watching the Olympics, I am starting to look the part of a bull in the comic The Farside.
Moo.
Refined carbohydrate dealing is the forgotten drug trade.
There are white sugar racketeers. They are sweet-toothed, money-hungry, power tie wearing entrepreneurs, who are one molecule shy of being players in the heroin market (or one genome) and not to mention having sloped foreheads. I bet my money and my sugar that there are whole economies built on the trade of refined sugar. Trillions of dollars may be made and lost in the international trade in this market of addictive additives. See, 'additive' is just one letter short of being the word, 'addictive'.
Perhaps paranoia is a side-effect as I am starting to suspect that Freud took over from Shakespeare in shaping modern day English.
After an injection of heroin cocaine opium refined sugar, the user reports feeling a surge of euphoria ("rush") accompanied by a warm flushing of the skin, a dry mouth, and heavy extremities. Following this initial euphoria, the user goes "on the nod," an alternately wakeful and drowsy state. Mental functioning becomes clouded due to the depression of the central nervous system.
The Sugar Wars
I once crossed paths with a book written years ago titled The Sugar Wars*. The sugar trade and its history, according to this author, is very similar to the cocaine, heroin and opium trades, during their respective eras. Only it was legal and whats more you were considered simply fabulous if you owned a shipping route and a big-ass navy fleet to protect it. Greenpeace? The protesters would be musket-whipped and keel-hauled. Not to mention possibly, romanced, against their will.
For the full story, buy the book, I don't have the patience I'm on Coke as it were. Speaking of Coke, Coca-Cola’s senior vice president for public affairs and its chief lobbyist, John Downs Jr. now has a seat on the National Parents and Teachers Association (PTA in America) as a board member. And I thought I was lost!
Forget the fox, here there are wolves guarding the proverbial hen house.
One can of coke contains nearly 10 teaspoons of refined sugar. This is one of the main reasons why little Johnny looks you in the eye with a dull glare as he crushes your brand new scale and simultaneously nails every Guitar Hero note during Iron Maiden's, Run to the Hills.
"Run to the Hilllllllls
run for your liiiiife."
Sounds like a good idea to me.
When refined carbohydrates enter the blood stream, a sugar spike happens, followed by an insulin reaction to counter the sugar-rush effect. Then BOOM, you crash, experience a headache become irritable and get, just plain down - them down home blues - Louisiana style; 12 bar blues and I ain't talking scat about guitars, I am talking candy bar blues.
Pirate to sloped-head, first mate: "Avast! Fetch me, me booty of thar fine white powder or ye face Davie Jones' locker, I need a fix."
I hope I don't run out of my potato chips made free of hydrogenated oil anytime soon. Those Oreos are calling my name and each of those tasty cookies are worth 1 second onto my 10k time.
_________________________________________________
*After a cursorary Google search, the author came to the conclusion that the book, The Sugar Wars has been destroyed by pirates and is no longer available, therefore the author of the Sugar Wars is currently unknown.