"Today we are faced with a challenge that calls for a shift in our thinking, so that humanity stops threatening its life support system. We are called to assist the Earth to heal her wounds and in the process, heal our own."
- Wangari Maathai

Sunday, February 14, 2010

How can the body deal with this?

Thinking about trans fats put me in mind of the state of my mother's kitchen when I had to move her out of her flat.  Everything in that kitchen was covered with a thick, sticky layer of yellow/brown stuff.  The only way I could remove it was with vinegar and a great deal of scrubbing and scraping.  It came off in skin-like layers, without any sign of dissolving.  This, I suddenly realised, is hydrogenated oil at room temperature.  My mother used to cook everything in lard (hydrogenated oil).  She would even keep the remains in the fridge after cooking.  It used to sit there, in a bowl, hard, greasy and white (with bits stuck in it).    Now if that's  what the stuff can do to walls and tiles how on earth does the body deal with it?  How does the body digest it, utilise it?  I don't see how it can, it just must clog up the body and all its systems  like it clogged up that kitchen.  I experienced exactly the same scenario at our rental property, when the last tenants moved out - they left the kitchen covered in the same stuff. 

These images come to me when I am tempted to think that eating this or that 'just this once' cannot harm me.  I think of my poor body and how it will cope with what I am feeding it.  I think of a thick, sticky layer of yellow/brown stuff lining my arteries and clinging to my internal organs because my body is not equipped to deal with it.  I think of heart attacks, vascular disease, strokes, diabetes and dementia and I think of what an expert says:  " Two thirds of these diseases would be eliminated if we consumed a healthier diet and exercised more"  - Dr Meir Stampfer MD; Professor of Epidemiology & Nutrition; Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

I would never dream of putting sugar or lard or other stuff into my car because I know my car is not equipped to utlise it.  So why on earth did I put stuff into my body that I knew my body was not equipped to utilise?  It was/is absolutely senseless. 

Diana Elsmere