Yummy nitrates. Perhaps I can say that kind of flippantly because I don't really know what nitrates are; I've just heard that they're in hotdogs and they're bad for you. Because of this fact, I have yet to buy a package of hotdogs as a wife in charge of grocery shopping.
A couple of weeks ago, I somberly nodded in agreement when my dad-in-law declared, "Junk food is like rap music and pornography. It robs a man of his ability to enjoy the real thing."
And yet, when my mom and I walked into Stewarts a couple of weeks ago, I was nearly awash with emotion. I'd forgotten how much I love Stewarts in the several months John and I had been away from it in the South. Mom and I used to have a happy, occasional tradition of stopping at a Stewarts for hotdogs and milkshakes. I revelled once again in the small-town, common-man, local-business feel and decided to get a hotdog, piling it with sauerkraut and the red relish I've never seen anywhere else. It was delightful.
Truth be told, when Saturday came, we all had hotdogs again. After a day of garage-saling, gardening, and just generally being outdoors, an easy dinner seemed best. Mom boiled up some pasta for pesto and Dad fired up the grill. My parents buy Hebrew National hotdogs, which are delicious, and our supper was simple and perfect.
Then Mom started saying what I was already thinking. "Grandpa Smith loved hotdogs. He called them tube-steak. And look how long he lived." My grandpa was a remarkable man. When he was diagnosed with Type I diabetes as an adult, people said that he wouldn't live past 50. He lived to 86, and spent every day of his life outdoors. And he ate stuff like hotdogs and candy bars a lot.
I credit his health to all his exercise and God's blessing. Lives like his help me to keep things in perspective. And, undoubtedly in preparation for Memorial Day, my in-laws have a stash of Hebrew Nationals in their refrigerator door at this very minute!
Thursday, May 27, 2010
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Sometime in the last couple years, I read an article or something that talked like "you are what your grandparents ate" or something along those lines and how what they ate has as much effect on you as what you eat. So just because he ate junk food, he may have his grandparents to thank for some of his good health, but you are the one that gets the results of his hot dogs and candy bars. I think it also talked about how like all your mom's eggs would have been formed while her mother was pregnant, so what your grandma ate while pregnant would affect you. But I clearly have no idea what I'm talking about, just bringing it up because it was interesting to me... if only it would have stuck in my head better :)
ReplyDeleteFound some information on that...Scary! http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/epigenetics-2.html
ReplyDeletePamela
So interesting! I didn't read the entire article, Pamela, but a month or more ago John's friend Keith had us watch a video on epigenetics with him. I remember learning, like Amy said, that if a pregnant woman is carrying a girl, her environment/diet can affect her grandchildren through the baby girl's developing eggs. For men, I think I remember that the environmental factors have to occur when they are pre-pubescent boys as their gametes are developing to have an effect on future generations. But I don't know much beside that, either.
ReplyDeleteAs far as my Grandpa is concerned, the Great Depression may have been the most influencing factor for his descendents, since he was a young, growing boy at the time. The hotdogs and candy bars he ate later in life probably only affected him. :-) But, seriously, perhaps what I eat could affect my grandchildren if I'm carrying a girl.