Because of my regularly scheduled visits to my doctor, I get regularly scheduled beratings from my doctor. And, each visit is unique as new data is released nearly daily in an effort to confuse as many people as possible.
Some years ago, when I was drinking plenty of coffee, a study concluded that coffee increased heart disease, cholesterol, and blood pressure. This scary news caused me to quit. A year later, a different study concluded coffee would prevent diabetes, liver cirrhosis, and kidney stones. This good news caused me to restart.
While pondering these conflicting studies, I stumbled upon another concerning wine. It seems as though drinking wine is good for you because it raises you HDL and lowers your LDL, your good and bad cholesterol levels, respectively. Unfortunately, wine can also cause breast cancer, raise your triglycerides, and cause weight gain. Yes, I began drinking wine on Monday and quit on Wednesday.
Then I heard about red meat. Keeping in mind that ‘vegetarian’ is an Iroquois Indian word that roughly translates into ‘poor hunter,’ vegetarians say meat causes cancer, heart problems, varicose veins, and obesity. A good vegetarian option is to eat beans. Somehow, bringing families together to grill garbanzos on an open flame doesn't offer the same appeal to me. On the other hand, red meat offers protein, essential acids, and vitamin B12; good news, indeed.
Enter the experts. In the 1980’s and 1990’s, renowned scientist and actress Meryl Streep and CBS’ 60-Minutes announced that the chemical Alar – used to treat apples – was very dangerous to humans. It seems as though lab rats were fed only 18 five-gallon buckets of Alar, per day, for weeks, and they developed tumors. Clearly, Alar was everything Dr. Streep and CBS claimed. If you are easily swayed, that is. But, I digress.
Chocolate? Good: Results in a lower body mass index.
Beer? Good: May lower heart problems by 30%.
Potato chips? Bad and good: Likely to cause weight increase, although increases arm strength by feeding oneself.
Green tea? Bad and good: Causes heart palpitations in large quantities, but is an antioxidant.
Life can be perplexing with all the information available to us at any given time. It is up to us to sort through it and select the best we can to make informed decisions.
For me it will be coffee, iced tea, red wine, meat, beer, and now chocolate. Sorry, Doc.
