I’ve heard about a diet that says that if you restrict your caloric intake to the bare minimum, you can really extend your lifespan.
Apparently, they tested it on rats and found that a limited number of the right kind of calories will make you live a long time.
Wheeee.
I watch the Barefoot Contessa (it’s a television cooking show) make real food for her husband and friends and my mouth waters.
There are no caloric limitations on that show.
Just a lot of sighs and exclamations about how good the food is and how much they seem to enjoy being alive so that they can eat it.
“Eat, Drink, and be Merry…for tomorrow we die.”
That’s not a really popular sentiment amongst the starve and live forever crowd.
Deny yourself now so that later you can live a long and unenjoyable life.
Dave Ramsey, a popular financial talk show host and author (that I like), says, “live now like no one else so that later you can live like no one else”.
His take on saving is that a little self-denial now will allow the future to be better and easier.
Makes a lot of sense from a financial point of view.
This starving rat thing is really kind of crazy, though. I guess the low-calorie diet is something you have to maintain forever so that you can eke out another five or ten years.
Again….wheee.
Oh…wait a minute. Check out this article I just found online that appeared in the NY Times…
I bet there will still be a bunch of anal anorexics in white turtlenecks, bald heads gleaming in their spotless kitchens, weighing each 3 ounce portion of sea kelp….thinking, “I’m going to beat this rap….I’m going to live FOREVER!!”
Which raises the question…which is better? A short life of intense enjoyment…or a long life of denial and discomfort?
Personally, I’d like the really long life of intense enjoyment and pleasure.
Hold the pickles, please.