I Love You To Death

Take a moment to ask yourself what is that one thing that connects the memories of family, memories of good times, and memories of real comfort? One word sums it up and that’s “FOOD!”

From the moment we‘re born food is established as a staple in the connection between how we feel emotionally and physically and everything else in our lives. When we gather to celebrate we bring food to feed one another and share in the good feelings that the festivities brought everyone together for. When we mourn a death we provide food as a means to console and express our empathy. When someone is sick we make foods that bring comfort. All of these gestures are gestures of love and are exhibited for the purest reasons, but take another moment to think about what in these meals made in the name of love. Two of the event mentioned about usually come along with things like fried meats, side dishes sprinkled with pork products and dairy, lots of starches and salts, and sugary drinks to wash it all down.

Now let‘s brake down these “Love Meals” down for what they are.

•Fried foods are high in fat, calories, and often salt. Eating too much saturated fats in your diet can raise bad low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol in your blood, which can increase the risk of heart disease and stroke. Within hours after eating a high fat meal, our blood gets thicker and milky with fat, which slows down blood flow to the heart.

•Because meat causes blockages in blood vessels, it’s no surprise that it leads to strokes. According to researchers, meat is “one of the most well-established dietary risk factors” for diabetes. A study by the Harvard School of Public Health found that even modest consumption of red or processed meat significantly increases the risk of type 2 diabetes — an illness that can cause debilitating health problems, including blindness, kidney failure, heart attacks, and strokes.

•Diets high in refined starches are linked to a higher risk of diabetes, heart disease, and weight gain. In addition, they can cause blood sugar to spike rapidly and then fall sharply. This is especially important for people with diabetes and prediabetes, since their bodies can't efficiently remove sugar from the blood.

•Frequently drinking sugar-sweetened beverages is associated with weight gain/obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, kidney diseases, non-alcoholic liver disease, tooth decay and cavities, and gout, a type of arthritis.

Every way we were taught to show our care through food seems very fitting for that age old saying “I Love You To Death” when you look at it from another angle. We must hold the love we have for ourselves and the love we give to other in the form of food in a higher regard because we have loved each other to death long enough! It is now time to LOVE EACH OTHER TO LIFE!!!!