I ran across an item recently that made me wonder if I’m really still living my life on Earth or if I crossed over some years ago and didn’t know it.
It referred to a University of Michigan study dealing with the life expectancy of people who eat certain foods regularly. The implication didn’t say it was promoting a vegan lifestyle or anything like that, but it kind of makes you wonder.
Anyway, by whatever calculation they used, they said the “healthy” life expectancy of people is reduced by exactly 36 minutes for every hot dog they consume.
Are they kidding me? Given that hot dogs are one of my regular joys in life, I should have been dead long ago.
There’s more. A 12-ounce soft drink, primarily Cokes, take 12 minutes off your lifespan. Beef is worth 10 minutes. And for every cheeseburger you wolf down you can expect to lose 9 minutes.
Hmm, I believe I’ve consumed an average of one bottle or can of cola beverage every day since my teenage years. I don’t eat a lot of cheeseburgers, but I love burgers without cheese. And steaks are a regular part of my diet, even with the rising cost of beef.
Part of the rationale on soft drinks, of course, is the sugar content. I’ve been drinking diet pop for about the last six decades. But I’m not off the hook there either, I’m told. Studies say that artificial sweeteners cause a 62% negative decline and not only raise your risk of diabetes and heart disease but can promote dementia as well.
That’s funny, I can just about remember what I had for breakfast every day when I was in my teens, although I usually forget people’s names five minutes after I’m introduced to them. Even when I struggle to recall a name, though, it always seems to come to me five minutes or so later.
There’s a silver lining, though. The study reports that eating servings of nuts and seeds regularly can add back 25 minutes a day to your life expectancy. Sad to report, however, nuts and such are not a regular part of my diet.
I did a few calculations and discovered that adding up all the listed foods and drinks I’m supposed to avoid comes to something like 4,300 minutes a year. Pop is a bit more than that. Beef and burgers add several thousand more.
The good news, however, is there are 525,600 minutes in a year, so it isn’t as if I’m shaving a decade off my life by indulging in foods I like.
The culprit with hot dogs, it seems, is they are processed meats with additives that stand out as the chief bugaboos of food critics. As a boy, hot dogs were my favorite fare whenever we’d pick up fast food (that was in the pre-McDonald’s days).
I usually got them with mustard, the standard fare in Minnesota where I was raised. Moving to Indiana I learned that coney dogs, with chili topping and such, were popular. And that was the way my wife’s family, who hailed from West Virginia, always made them.
We generally have a hot dog supper every week or two.
Regardless of your diet, the way I see it, heredity and general health have more to do with longevity than your diet does. I outlived both parents chronologically, and my vital signs show no sign of slowing down just yet. So keep the hot dogs and soft drinks coming.
Jim Bailey’s column appears on the first and third Thursday each month. He can be reached by email at jameshenrybailey@earthlink.net.