The yuppies are starving, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Isn’t that a pleasant thought for the holiday season?
One of the newest trends to emerge from the desolate plains where science and culture meet is the calorie-restricted diet. If you thought your friends on the Zone diet were insufferable, wait ‘til you get a load of this crowd.
The average American consumes around 3,000 calories a day, some in the form of jelly doughnuts, the rest, we hope, in a more nutritious form. The 21st-century gastronomic pioneers of the calorie-restricted diet reduce their caloric intake by 20 to 40 percent; they might eat 1,800 calories a day, in carefully selected and measured portions of protein, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. No jelly doughnuts.
As a reward for this fasting, the calorie-restricted dieters hope to extend their lives significantly. Studies with mice indicate a calorie-restricted diet lengthens life; monkey studies seem to be heading the same way. The humans on half-rations hope to live more than 100 years, maybe as many as 120 or 140.
The obvious first thought many have on hearing this news is – if a reduced-calorie diet significantly extends life, why do all the poorly-fed people die by age 40? If you’re going to eat 1,800 calories a day and be healthy, they have to be the right 1,800 calories of top-quality food. The poor folks get all the wrong calories, along with disease, exposure, pollution and war. They eat 1,800 calories and then breathe toxic fumes for 12 to 15 hours a day, gluing the soles onto Nike athletic shoes at a factory in Indonesia.
The people who are part of the calorie-restricted trend – the new-style calorie-restricted trend, as opposed to the old-style calorie-restricted trend – are from a different world than the Nike-gluers. As far as I can tell, the new-style calorie-restricted people all have post-graduate degrees and six-figure incomes. Dot-com entrepreneurs and corporate attorneys.
I don’t know about you, but being a 120-year-old dot-commer doesn’t sound that appealing to me, especially once I’d read the side effects of the calorie-restricted diet: low energy, irritability, depression and low sex drive. Not to mention hunger pangs and cravings. And what if you go through 80 or 90 years of exquisite misery and then get hit by a bus? The undigested life is not worth living.
No, there’s got to be more here than meets the eye. Is it guilt, that having scaled the heights of affluence, these dieters are unconsciously trying to atone, to take on the physical characteristics of the uncounted masses of poor and undernourished? Is it more personal? Is it a smack in the mouth to those Italian and Jewish mothers, for whom food is love, their bowls brimming with pasta and kugel? Whatever culture you spring from, sharing food is the great human ritual. Perhaps the dieters are rejecting us all, with their scientific portions eaten furtively, late at night, in the office, hunched over a keyboard or legal brief.
National Public Radio has been interviewing people over 100 years of age. Last week, they spoke with a 102-year-old lady. Her mind was clear, her voice firm and melodious. The granddaughter of slaves and a widow for 40 years, her life has not been easy, but she seems to have found more than her share of contentment and wisdom. What was she doing as the interviewer came through the door? Fixing a pan of fried chicken.
The Undigested Life
The yuppies are starving, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Isn’t that a pleasant thought for the holiday season?
One of the newest trends to emerge from the desolate plains where science and culture meet is the calorie-restricted diet. If you thought your friends on the Zone diet were insufferable, wait ‘til you get a load of this crowd.
The average American consumes around 3,000 calories a day, some in the form of jelly doughnuts, the rest, we hope, in a more nutritious form. The 21st-century gastronomic pioneers of the calorie-restricted diet reduce their caloric intake by 20 to 40 percent; they might eat 1,800 calories a day, in carefully selected and measured portions of protein, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. No jelly doughnuts.
As a reward for this fasting, the calorie-restricted dieters hope to extend their lives significantly. Studies with mice indicate a calorie-restricted diet lengthens life; monkey studies seem to be heading the same way. The humans on half-rations hope to live more than 100 years, maybe as many as 120 or 140.
The obvious first thought many have on hearing this news is – if a reduced-calorie diet significantly extends life, why do all the poorly-fed people die by age 40? If you’re going to eat 1,800 calories a day and be healthy, they have to be the right 1,800 calories of top-quality food. The poor folks get all the wrong calories, along with disease, exposure, pollution and war. They eat 1,800 calories and then breathe toxic fumes for 12 to 15 hours a day, gluing the soles onto Nike athletic shoes at a factory in Indonesia.
The people who are part of the calorie-restricted trend – the new-style calorie-restricted trend, as opposed to the old-style calorie-restricted trend – are from a different world than the Nike-gluers. As far as I can tell, the new-style calorie-restricted people all have post-graduate degrees and six-figure incomes. Dot-com entrepreneurs and corporate attorneys.
I don’t know about you, but being a 120-year-old dot-commer doesn’t sound that appealing to me, especially once I’d read the side effects of the calorie-restricted diet: low energy, irritability, depression and low sex drive. Not to mention hunger pangs and cravings. And what if you go through 80 or 90 years of exquisite misery and then get hit by a bus? The undigested life is not worth living.
No, there’s got to be more here than meets the eye. Is it guilt, that having scaled the heights of affluence, these dieters are unconsciously trying to atone, to take on the physical characteristics of the uncounted masses of poor and undernourished? Is it more personal? Is it a smack in the mouth to those Italian and Jewish mothers, for whom food is love, their bowls brimming with pasta and kugel? Whatever culture you spring from, sharing food is the great human ritual. Perhaps the dieters are rejecting us all, with their scientific portions eaten furtively, late at night, in the office, hunched over a keyboard or legal brief.
National Public Radio has been interviewing people over 100 years of age. Last week, they spoke with a 102-year-old lady. Her mind was clear, her voice firm and melodious. The granddaughter of slaves and a widow for 40 years, her life has not been easy, but she seems to have found more than her share of contentment and wisdom. What was she doing as the interviewer came through the door? Fixing a pan of fried chicken.