Liz’s rant: Twinkies for breakfast

No, this doesn’t mean I’ve deserted Operation Athlete. Far from it. I’m just here to tell you about a recent story that involves someone else having Twinkies for breakfast… and lunch… and dinner. Oh, sure, he shakes it up. He throws in a Ding Dong or Nutty Bar – even some Doritos and sugared cereal and Oreos. These junk foods, as my mom would call them, account for 66 percent of his daily food intake.

Anywho, the Twinkie diet man is actually a nutrition professor who’s lost 27 pounds in 10 weeks by reducing his caloric intake by 800, yet consumes foods considered to have no nutritional value, all in an effort to prove the point that it’s not what you eat, but how much you eat. Since beginning the diet, his body mass index has dropped to normal levels, his bad cholesterol dropped and the good cholesterol rose.

Before he started the, um… diet, if you will, he ate whole grains, veggies and the like. Heck – he considered pizza a treat! (I assert it is a staple). He told CNN:

“There seems to be a disconnect between eating healthy and being healthy,” Haub said. “It may not be the same. I was eating healthier, but I wasn’t healthy. I was eating too much.”

So he eats Twinkies and his overall health appears to have improved. Meanwhile the rest of us are stuck with the food police. Can’t you just see New York City’s mayor have a spell over this one? He’s now spending $370,000 on a soup-is-the-devil campaign (yes, I said soup). The attack will be financed by city taxpayers and the federal government – meaning us.

And what about San Fransisco? They’re probably falling out of their chairs, having now banned Happy Meals. I told you people. The food justice/we-know-what’s-best-for-you nanny-staters are just beginning.

So what to do? Well, the answer is obvious. Eat a couple Twinkies. And call me in the morning.

-Liz