To Health, Happiness, and Fast Food

I am a bastion of healthiness and wellbeing. I am in tune with my body and everything it needs to survive and flourish. I just thought you might want to know that. Unfortunately, even though I know what my body needs, I don’t always see fit to give it the required nutritional supplements. So basically, I was being facetious in that first sentence. I’m not healthy, I’m actually rather lazy.

I could blame the problem on the fact that there is a Hardee’s and a Wendy’s right down the street from me. Or that there is a Bojangles and a McDonald’s not too far away either. But is it really the fault of fast food companies that I am eating poorly? Yes, it is. Well, actually no it isn’t. It’s just easier to blame it on fast food chains. Otherwise I’d have to blame my problems on myself, and I’m not really all that great at taking responsibility for my own actions.

But really, I think we should start at the beginning. The major problem isn’t the proximity of fast food joints. My problem is that I have yet to go grocery shopping. Seriously, it’s been like a month. One look in my fridge and you can easily confirm that I’m a single guy. Every bachelor has a fridge with several different kinds of condiments, but no real food of any sort. And no, leftover Chinese take-out does not qualify as substantial real food.

So, upon opening my refrigerator door, you will see a bottle of ketchup, a bottle of mustard, a bottle of Worcestershire sauce (and yes, I had to get the bottle out of the fridge in order to spell it properly), some pickled relish, a squeeze tube of mayo, three cans of beer, and about a pint of milk that may or may not have gone bad already. Seriously, I’m afraid to open it and find out. Luckily for me, I cleaned out the fridge, more or less, about a month ago. It’s a good thing too, some of the stuff I had in there was look really, really nasty. It wasn’t exactly what I’d call edible. And of course, the fridge is devoid of any fruits of vegetables whatsoever. This isn’t because I don’t like eating my veggies, it’s that I just don’t trust vegetarians.

I’m pretty sure I’ve spawned new forms of life in the back of my food cooling unit, but I had to throw those in the dumpster. That may sound cruel to you lovers of prokaryotes out there, but let me assure you, I’m only insuring that the fittest forms of mold and bacterial life are allowed to thrive on this planet. And yes, this is important. I know some of you think that mold growing on food is icky and yucky. Well, that may be, but just remember that penicillin is a form of mold. And it was the discovery of penicillin that helped the Allies win World War II. Too bad fungus can’t be awarded the Medal of Honor. So just remember, the next time you take an antibiotic, you’re ingesting good old fashioned mold. Yummy.

So now you know the conundrum that I’m in. I have no food in storage at my house, so if I’m hungry, I have to go elsewhere to get it. Of course, I could go grocery shopping. But that would take valuable time and effort. And of course, I only think to go grocery shopping when I’m hungry. So why would I want to wait to buy food, then take all that time to cook it up when I can go and get something already prepared and ready for me to eat right now? This is why lately I have ended up at Wendy’s drive through window. What can I say? I’m a sucker for the 99 cent menu.

I have to say though, I have been doing one thing lately that is very healthy. I’ve been drinking plenty of water. In fact, it’s about the only thing I drink these days. Occasionally I’ll have some juice or Gatorade (or milk if it hasn’t turned into cottage cheese yet), but the vast majority of the time, its water. The benefits of this are twofold: One, water is cheap, so I don’t waste money on soda’s like I used to. And two, I’m not drinking down empty calories and needless amounts of sugar. I also don’t drink near the amount of caffeine that I used to. Which means now, if I have a Cherry Coke any time after 2pm, it’ll keep me awake pretty much all night.

How healthy can a substance be if it keeps me awake until four in the morning? Well, caffeine is a natural product that is found in over 60 varieties of plants. So it won’t cause you to go blind or deaf like NutraSweet might. The downside is that caffeine acts as a natural pesticide that paralyzes and kills certain insects that feed on these plants. Congratulations! You’re drinking pesticide. Isn’t that just super?

Although caffeine is relatively safe for humans (apparently we can metabolize the compound rather efficiently compared to insects), there are still some unwanted side effects. Prolonged use of caffeine can lead to irritability, anxiety, insomnia, and hyperreflexia (yeah, I have no idea what that is either). Caffeine can also increase the amount of acid in the stomach and therefore can cause peptic ulcers. So yeah, large amounts of naturally occurring pesticide are harmful to you. I’m glad we were able to figure that one out.

Just remember what you read here the next time you down a Red Bull or Mountain Dew. I may be surviving off of Wendy’s Super Value Menu, but at least I don’t have over-caffeinated symptoms. Well, ok, I might be just a slight bit irritable. But that is only because I find about 90% of humanity to be extremely annoying or incredibly ignorant. And ignorant people are annoying. So just remember, if I seem irritable, it’s not because I just chugged an entire two liter bottle of Live Wire Mountain Dew, it’s because you’re an idiot.

But you’ll have to excuse me, I’m getting awfully hungry just sitting here. I think it’s time to go out and pick up some food. Don’t you worry about me though. Even if I succumb to the siren’s song that is the fast food industry, I will still be able to live a healthy life. I plan on working off all of those calories that I consume today. I’m playing football later tonight. No, not the football with the running and the passing and the tackling. I’m talking about video game college football. There’s nothing like laying back in a recliner and playing some good old fashioned hard hitting All American football. Hey, my thumbs can burn off all the calories I need. Honestly, running outdoors is totally overrated.