You Are What You Eat

How literal of a concept is this? You are literally built upon the vitamins, minerals, proteins, fats and sugars that you ingest into your body. This is just fascinating to me.

The question is, do you want to be made up of vegetables or pizza?

Pizza.

Okay, but really. 15 months ago, I almost lost my father. Being away at school, I didn’t know the severity of his heart attack until months later. Two of his arteries were like 90% blocked or something crazy like that, and a gout attack in his foot, along with piled up divorce-stress, triggered a heart attack landing him in the hospital for 3 days.

Last week in my biochemistry class, we learned about what causes inflammation in the arteries, how it can lead to heart attacks and Cardiovascular Disease, and how to prevent it. After reading multiple peer-reviewed journals, and translating them into layman’s terms, I am knowledgeable enough to explain it enough to know that you are, in fact, what you eat.

A high-fat diet can lead to inflammation. Inflammation, for now let’s call it plaque, starts with a tiny gash in the wall of an artery. This gash can be caused by a lot of things such as cigarette smoke, LDL (bad cholesterol carriers), triglycerides, high blood pressure (caused by a high-salt diet or stress), basically any of the things you already know can cause a heart attack. And here’s how.

With the flow of blood constantly passing over this gash, it is only a matter of time before all of that bad stuff starts getting jammed in there. After a while, the body will be all “uh, that’s not supposed to happen”, and will start sending over its knights on white blood cells to solve the problem. Unfortunately, this only continues the build up of gunk in the artery wall and it will just get bigger and bigger. With this new lump in it’s wall, the inner pathway for blood goes from a nice, hollow tube to a clogged, narrow pathway, increasing the blood pressure as it all tries to flow through a small space at the same time. (Kind of like how making the top of the hose smaller by blocking it with your thumb will make it shoot out faster). This increased blood pressure will cause stress on the heart, causing a heart attack, or could rupture this mass of gunk, releasing it into the blood stream and causing a blood clot.

What’s the best thing to do to prevent this? Take the gunk out of your life. Don’t smoke, keep foods with LDLs out of your diet and save them for your ‘once-in-a-while’ meals. Keep bad fats out and good fats in. “Good” Fats? Yeah, they’re a thing. Unsaturated fats such as olive oil, avocado, nuts, egg yolks, salmon, flax seeds, all considered good fats. Bad fats are a little more obvious. Butter, vegetable oil, butter, shortening, butter (can you tell I really hate butter), are all bad fats. The difference?  Bad fats are structured in a way that can ultimately build up in your arteries causing blockages and increasing risks of plaque build up. The good fats, especially the ones containing the magical omega-3, gets rid of all of the molecules that can lead to inflammation. Pretty cool, huh?

Aside from all of the mumbo-jumbo of big words and talk about blood, let’s get back to my main point. You are what you eat. I think that’s something most people forget about. I’m not saying we should all eat a natural, organic, vegan, boring diet (not that that’s boring, I’m just making a point), but try to get all of your vitamins and minerals from your food. Keep your protein lean and your fats unsaturated.

And always, always remember; that one piece of chocolate cake won’t kill you.

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