No part of this article may be copied, published or distributed in whole or in part without the consent of the author. Contact izzy@ygoodman.com for more information.

It was the Ancient Greeks, those eternal busybodies, who began the trend that we now know as the health craze. It was Hippocrates, or one of his buddies, who first coined the phrase "you are what you eat." Actually, he probably said it in Latin, because most scientists have to say everything in Latin. They think it makes them sound intelligent. Most of us think it makes them sound pretentious and nerdy. Why say "lepidopterous ostentatious" or some other such thing ending with lots of esses, when it's so much easier to say "butterfly?" Anyway, the first Greek who decided that we are what we eat started a health trend. People began to worry that if their meals consisted (as most of ours do) of donuts and beer, they'll get a self-rising belly and their blood will give mosquitos a hangover. So they began to eat healthy.

At first, it was easy. Doctors discovered that foods contain two basic ingredients that affect health. These are calories and vitamins. Calories are unhealthy substances that make food taste good and vitamins (from "vile tasting mineral") are healthy substances that make food taste bad. Healthy food has to contain the right mix of calories and vitamins so that it tastes good enough to eat but not good enough to pig out on. Doctors decided that foods derived from grain were healthy. So health conscious people made sure to eat plenty of donuts and drink plenty of beer.

Then someone invented nutrition. We know this is a recent discovery because the word nutrition is not derived from some ancient Greek or Latin word. This does not mean that the ancient Greeks did not give nutrition any consideration. They thought about it and then had the good sense to go back to what they were doing. And they lived longer, too. Did you ever hear of any ancient Americans? Nutrition is actually composed of two English words. Trition is short for attrition, which is what you get when you start serving nutritious foods. The nut is you, if you actually do so.

Nutrition was actually invented to create jobs for a bunch of people who had nothing else to do. First they said that food had to be nutritious, then the government hired them to make up a bunch of rules to decide what that meant. Nutritionists decided that it was not enough to confuse people with just the information about calories and vitamins. They discovered a whole bunch of new things in food we all had to avoid, like carbohydrates, saturated fats, cholesterol and taste. Cholesterol, they said, was even worse than calories. It's found in animal products. Since these animals are dead, nutritionists concluded that cholesterol was pretty dangerous. People should be worried about cholesterol, the nutritionists warn, because it causes heart attacks and strokes. As a matter of fact, more people have died from heart attacks and strokes since cholesterol was discovered.

What bothered me most about these nutritionists is that everything they discovered in the foods we liked was bad for you. The only good things they found were in foods no one would touch if they were dying of hunger. Even so, most of us went along with them good naturedly until they eventually decided that almost anything edible was dangerous. According to them, the only safe food was some form of seaweed found in off the cost of Malaysia. Donuts were out because of the fat. Beer was no good because even though it tasted like it has lots of vitamins, it still had lots of other bad stuff.

Then the government must have figured that if they made us give up our beer they would have a revolt on their hands because these "experts" turned around and said that beer was healthy after all. It's a good source of something called chromium, which is helpful in fighting cholesterol. So now I can wake up in the morning and fight a six pack's worth. Then, exhausted from all that fighting, I take a nap, then I fight cholesterol some more until supper. It's a tough job, but I'm proud to do my part.

This is also why beer is traditional during Superbowl season. Now when my wife asks, "Is that all you're going to do, sit there watching the game, guzzling beer?" I can answer in all honesty, "Can't you see I'm busy fighting cholesterol?"

But don't think that this means that the nutritionists have actually done some good. After all, beer didn't become healthy just because they said so. They wanted to keep their jobs, so they lied. We all know there really is no such thing as chromium and even if there is, you won't find it in beer. The fact is that heart attacks and strokes can be caused by stress. Stress can be caused by worrying. The real reason so many people are having heart attacks and strokes is because, thanks to the nutritionists, they're worrying more about such things as saturated fats and cholesterol. The real reason beer is so good in fighting cholesterol is because in large quantities it helps you stop worrying about it.

Nutritionists say that poor nutrition is very dangerous. This is illustrated by this story:

A salesman named Barry worked for a large firm. Since he did not make a lot of money, he ate meatloaf four times a week, usually with french fries. This made for very poor nutrition. One day his boss called him in and said that his orders were falling off because his customers preferred to deal with a polished salesman and not someone who looks like he would not be out of place with the word "Goodyear" emblazoned on his shirt. Barry was fired and now had to eat meatloaf seven days a week. In order to introduce variety into his diet, he experimented with different seasonings. The friends he invited for dinner complimented his culinary achievements and suggested that he open a restaurant. The restaurant became a franchise with locations across the country. He became a millionaire. Then he bought his old company and fired his old boss. So you see how dangerous poor nutrition is. Look at what it did to Barry's boss.