Jul 17, 2008 - 04:30 AM
By Louis MacPherson
I like fat... like a hyena likes scraps.
I like sugar... like a Grizzly bear likes blueberries.
Visited my doctor today -- no more fat; no more sugar. Goodbye happiness.
I remember being one of those, you know, those people who say they'll never give up the food they love. You know who. We are a pretty big group are we not?
If it tastes good, then it is no good for you. Period. Sometimes not even in moderation. Good food is like politicians. Sometimes we can take them in moderation, sometimes not at all. But I'd rather eat a handful of M and M's than a politician.
In the span of two weeks, my doctor told me that I had high cholesterol -- 7.1 -- and that I was hypoglycemic. Hip, hip hooray. Break out the champagne. Do they make diet champagne?
Sugar and fat are a food group unto themselves. On my sixteenth birthday my mother gave me permission to stop eating turnip. I'm not making this up. Now, almost 31 years later, I found out it is one of the best natural sugars in the world. Who knew? Like I said earlier, if it tastes bad, it's good for you.
I have to eat more fibre as well; toilet paper purchases have skyrocketed as well as moisturizing cream. My breakfast cereal is now Guardian. It's appropriately named in that it's job is to guard your rectum. It says "maple brown sugar flavour" on the label, but I'll be damned if there is any maple sugar or flavour. It looks and tastes what I imagine honey-coated rabbit turds would taste like.
The box says one cup equals 24 per cent of my daily-recommended fibre intake. I can eat one cup in three tablespoons full. Who are they kidding? One cup wouldn't feed a rabbit. I eat two cups minimum with berries.
My serving of berries cost as much as the box of cereal. By the time breakfast is finished, I've eaten 300 per cent of my daily recommended fibre intake. I'm off to work... have to press my shirt, put on my tie, polish my shoes and grab my Attends, the goose and the eye of the needle.
Now for the milk. Becker's Milk was great... homogenized chocolate milk. It barely made it through a straw. Yum. Then again, it was probably akin to pouring molasses into my arteries. When my father ate tea biscuits, you couldn't see the biscuits for the molasses.
I graduated to 2 per cent milk, which is sort of like your second choice for a date. Then along came Lactose 2 per cent which sucked all of the energy out of milk like Prime Minister Stephen Harper at a press gallery meeting. I've now graduated to 1 per cent, kind of like a Shirley Temple without the flavour. I'll pass on the skim milk. I want to die happy. Besides, I might as well throw a calcium tablet in a bowl of water and save the money.
The multigrain bread I eat has me spitting out seeds four hours after I've eaten, making me feel like a giant bird. Last week we bought a jar of sugar-free jam. Seriously, is this someone's idea of a joke? Give me drywall paste instead. My diet orange and grape juice has one-third the sugar, but four times the sodium so now my blood pressure is up. I am eating so many small meals a day, I've got a toothbrush implanted in my mouth.
Lunch was a low-fat mayo on multigrain bread with turkey and lettuce. I am writing this to you because my speech has become impaired due to the moistened mayo, lettuce, and bread that I cannot scrape off the roof of my mouth.
Life is good.
Oshawa resident Louis MacPherson comments on all manner of issues. He is a frequent contributor to this space.
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