Have you ever heard of Gourmand Syndrome?
It occurs when a certain section of the brain’s right hemisphere is damaged. Patients become obsessed with food…specifically ‘fine dining’ choices.
For example, a snowboarder recently sustained brain damage in a near-fatal accident and awoke from a coma experiencing intense cravings for basil pesto, a food he had no particular feelings for prior to the fall.
I’m fascinated by this disease…because I think I have its polar opposite.
You see, I experienced a hard blow to the head at an early age. It wasn’t coma-worthy — just involved some stitches and a scar to the forehead. But I think it may have made me obsessed with the ‘non-fine dining’ choices on menus.
Goodness knows that’s the type of food I crave to this day. And if I can blame a whack on the head and call it Junk Food Syndrome — instead of a lack of self-control –
Sign me up.
Sweet success
Mark Haub, I want to shake your hand.
Or perhaps you’d prefer a snack cake.
Thanks to the research you conducted at Kansas State University — Go Wildcats — there is now empirical evidence that weight loss depends on the calories going in…and not the nutritional value of the food.
Haub shed 27 pounds in two months, and his other health factors improved as well. Lower triglycerides. Lower bad cholesterol. Higher good cholesterol.
He did take a multivitamin and drink a protein shake each day, and tried to eat a vegetable serving as well — usually something green. But at least two-thirds of his daily diet came from snack foods.
In the CNN article, Haub sounds a little conflicted by his success. Personally, I feel vindicated. Although my diet is not as junkie as his study, I have never eaten as healthy as experts recommend, and have gotten my share of flack about it over the years.
Now, when I reach for Froot Loops as a snack, I’ve got scientific proof –
It’s diet food, people.
→ 2 Comments
Posted in Commentary, Dieting, Education, Food, Health, Humor, Life
Tagged bad cholesterol, class project, CNN, commentary, convenience store diet, diet, diet food, dieting, Doritos, food, Froot Loops, good cholesterol., Health, human nutrition, Humor, junk food, Kansas State University, KSU Wildcats, life, Mark Haub, multivitamin, nutritional value, Nutty Bars, Oreos, professor, protein drink, research, snack cake, triglyceride, Twinkies, weight loss