Dieting? Pork is always the right answer

Jason Offutt

Social media is, in my nine-year-old’s words, stupid. It’s full of the ridiculous, like recipes for dishes no one in their right mind has the ingredients for (other than the Amish, does anyone regularly stock goat cheese?). It’s rife with pictures of other people’s children, political rants that are wildly inaccurate and pictures of things people used to be embarrassed of.

I generally post what I think is funny, but I’m not sure everyone agrees with me.

For example, after returning from the grocery store where I read the labels on various low-carb wraps, I posted the following thought:

“A slice of ham counts as a low-carb wrap, right?”

Yeah, that’s funny. Anyone trying to lose weight isn’t going to use ham as a bread substitute. Pfft.

Judging by the response to my post, apparently they do.

Brian: Just a piece of ham? Are you actually wrapping it? More info.

Me: Well, yeah, it has to be wrapped around something (bacon, perhaps) or it wouldn’t be a wrap.

I was just kidding about the bacon.

Brian: Bacon is perfectly fine.

Uh, what now?

Aaron: Gluten free.

Megan: Yes. I’m low-carbing now. Wrap ham around a stick of string cheese. That’s my snack wrap.

Dave: I usually wrap mine with a big chunk of lettuce on the outside, cheese and mayo on the inside.

Chris: Ham comes from pigs. Pigs eat vegetables. Therefore, ham is made up of vegetables.

Chris is the only person who’s made sense so far.

My worldview has been seriously altered. Ham, bacon, cheese and mayonnaise for weight loss?

For anyone who knows me, I’m obviously not a weight loss guru (unless by “loss” you mean “gain” then I’ve got that science covered), but I’m pretty sure eating mounds of pork fat and cheese slathered in mayo doesn’t fit into a normal medically accepted health regimen.

Dr. Robert Atkins, whose popular diet was based on the scientific work of Dr. Alfred W. Pennington, started this all in 1963 when he put himself on a diet of increased fat and protein and completely eliminated sugar. The diet became popular in 1965, and remains popular because of one thing – nobody likes fruits and vegetables, everyone likes salty pork bits.

Atkins lived on that diet until he died in 2003, not from congestive heart failure like everyone expected, but because he slipped on an icy New York sidewalk and cracked his head.

The fat didn’t kill him, New York did.

So where does that leave us? People are as afraid of carbohydrates as I am of clowns, which is a shame because it’s next to impossible to escape them. Carbs, not clowns. Clowns are easy to escape; no one can run fast in shoes that big.

On a low-carb diet, bread, pasta and rice are out. Bananas are suddenly deadly. Even church is threatening. Dieters are faced with a dilemma – either take communion (which is loaded with carbohydrates), or stick by the diet and face eternal damnation.

I didn’t know dieting was that hard on a spiritual level.

There are also high-carb/low fat diets, soup and boiled egg diets, and my favorite, the German monk beer diet.

It’s a good thing we have the ingredients for all those diets in our refrigerator. It’s nice to have all our bases covered.

Find out about everything Jason at jasonoffutt.com.