 Well, OK, I've never heard a doctor say it quite that way. It's
usually a litany of mumbo jumbo that includes long words and letters
like HDL and LDL, triglycerides, blood levels, and… blah, blah,
blah. The only words that catch my attention are "high risk of heart
attack." Those words are short, simple and have enough clout to
shock me into obedience.A middle-aged person doesn't ever want to
hear those words. I'm not sure of the exact age those words started
to matter, but according to the doctor, I should have been aware of
the potential threat from the time I exited the womb.
I'm not even sure what cholesterol is, exactly. I remember that
my parents switched from butter to margarine when they got the "high
risk of heart attack" talk from their doctors, so I've always
imagined that cholesterol must be yellow and slimy. However, butter
and margarine look pretty much the same, so I don't know how
switching would have helped.
Then I learned that cholesterol comes from animal foods and that
plant foods don't have cholesterol. I kind of identify with animals
more because plants don't move around much and, although I don't
move around much either, I'd still like to have that option. It
seems to me that one would want to have that slimy yellow stuff in
there just for that reason.
"No," the doctor tells me, "it blocks your arteries and prevents
blood from getting to your heart." I fail to see how slimy yellow
stuff would have a problem sliding effortlessly through my veins.
Perhaps it's not actually slimy. Some commercials on TV make it look
like Corn Pops floating around in there. These cholesterol Corn Pops
stick together, build up and cause a logjam. They don't simply melt
away like the ones I pour into my cereal bowl.
[to top of second column] |
 Perhaps Kellogg's needs to consider adding a little cholesterol
to their recipe for Corn Pops because my experience has shown them
to get soft and mushy just seconds after I add milk to them. If you
don't take the unfinished bowl off the table before you go to work,
they will have turned into yellow goo by the time you return. I used
to think my cat ate the leftover Corn Pops, but she tells me she
wouldn't eat that stuff if she was starving. This, coming from an
animal whose sole purpose in life is licking her posterior twice a
day. I digress… I apologize for placing breakfast cereal and cat
hygiene in the same paragraph.
Perhaps putting cholesterol in cereal would just exacerbate the
problem, though. At this point, there is little enough that I can
eat on my low-cholesterol diet. I don't want to lose my Corn Pops as
well.
My doctor didn't tell me what would need to be done if changing
my diet didn't help lower all those numbers and letters. However, I
know what has to be done when the plumbing in my house gets clogged,
and I would rather avoid eating foods that have tiny little Corn
Pops in them than let some yahoo send a Roto-Rooter through my
arteries.
[By LAURA SNYDER]
Laura Snyder is a nationally syndicated columnist,
author and speaker. You can reach her at
lsnyder@lauraonlife.com
or visit www.lauraonlife.com
for more info.
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