Nutritional pornography                             

            French fries represent nutritional pornography, the taste for which continues to increase to the consternation of everyone in the healthcare industry. The five leading causes of death in the United States are related to lifestyle: heart disease, cancer, chronic lung disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes. Our irrational eating habits contribute to most of them.

            Why target the otherwise nutritionally blessed potato? It is, after all, so rich in protein, vitamins, minerals and fiber that if it were our primary source of food we would survive quite well. When we convert it into a french fry we eliminate almost all of its value. Those healthy nutrients nearly disappear when we strip it naked because they lie in or just beneath the skin. And potato starch – the pulpy white stuff that’s left – is not what it was in your parents’ day. Commercial producers prefer the varieties that yield a highly branched starch that breaks down quickly into sugar, even while you’re still chewing. That’s why it tastes sweet, something that potato growers have known since before McDonald’s appeared on the fast food scene.

            Deep frying nearly triples the calories in that strip of starch. Salt is the coup de gras. Of course, the final product tastes wonderful. And who can eat just one french fry? They are as seductive as their human counterparts.

            The Luther Burger, a double-bacon cheeseburger on a Krispy Kreme donut, may represent an adolescent soft-porn rebellion against the health establishment.

            If nutritional pornography has a role model it must be the Heart Attack Grill, a Las Vegas “restaurant” that flouts culinary conventions by offering the 9,982-calorie Quadruple Bypass Burger and Flatliner Fries. The manager in his doctor’s white coat and the waitresses whose outfits parody nurses’ uniforms flaunt their unhealthy menu.  Customers who weigh more than 350 pounds qualify for a free meal. Unhappily, two of the establishment’s severely overweight spokespersons have died on the premises and at least two others suffered cardiac arrest but made it to the hospital.

            What drives such bizarre behavior? It may be that overindulgence does not extract an immediate penalty. Heart disease, hypertension and type 2 diabetes may chug along for years, perhaps decades, with no seeming ill effects. In the words of cardiologist Dr. Dean Ornish, “There is no such thing as a sudden heart attack. Surprise maybe, but not sudden.”