Loose Stool

Thursday night, I had dinner and wine with Jaclyn, Lori, Chi, Doug and Daniel.

During desert (which we did not partake in), Daniel and I began discussing our healthy eating habits. I related how I try to shop the perimeter of the grocery store and that it is rare to seem me consume packaged foods. Admittedly, my only weakness is Pringles (somewhere in Heaven, God has a warehouse of them waiting on me) but we all have our breaking points.

During our conversation, the subject of chemicals additives in packaged foods came up; more specifically, Olestra. This is the ingredient in some snack foods that makes your favorite goodies "low fat". It never ceases to amaze me that that people will willingly put chemicals into their bodies in the name of "low fat". I guess it hard to blame them. With a tempting warning label like this, it would be insanity NOT to dig right in.

Mmmmm.. cramping and loose stools. Boy, that makes that big-grab bag of Cheetos well worth it.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather eat the fattening stuff and maybe do an extra 10 minutes on the treadmill to make up for it. At least then I would not have to worry about loose stool sneaking out the back door when I am completely unprepared for it.

After further research, I discovered that the official name for this phenomenon is "anal leakage" as described in case studies.

"Also, olestra sometimes causes underwear staining due to the greasy fecal matters and a phenomenon called anal leakage (leakage of liquid olestra through anal sphincter)."







Basically, I have three choices:

Eat the fatty goodies and gain a few pounds
Eat the chemical goodies and shit my pants
Show some restraint, eat real food, and get healthier

I suppose we should thank the makers of Olestra for making this decision so easy. Now let's just use some commmon sense and make the right decision.

Note: I know this isn't new but it's still worth mentioning.