How do all of these relate? Who wants to think of something as innocent as a cupcake, with its nemesis, calories, and then something as horrendous as Cancer, in the same 2 second thought?
It is not a far stretch to link the three.
I'll begin with calories, kcals, or kilocalories. Some think they are just a number on the label, or something to fear and something to watch your intake of. But, brass tacks, it is the amount of energy required to raise one kilogram of water by one degree Celsius. So thusly, a calorie is energy. Food energy to be exact.
So what is all food made up of? Let's use an example : A harmless cupcake.
Decoratively adorned with creamy white vanilla frosting, and underneath, nestled inside a thin layer of parchment paper, a light fluffy chocolate cake, and it comes in perfectly personalized size. This handheld dessert could very well be the greatest invention and in the same breath our arch enemy. The point is it is made up of every major component of food energy. Carbohydrate, Protein and Fat.
Don't be scared. You knew this would happen eventually. Now, breath deep, and inhale the aroma of freshly baked calories. We need these to survive, to thrive, to conquer and enjoy life. So why are they so wrong? Calories are essential, yes, but if not used correctly and cautiously, can have the same detrimental effects as an atomic bomb to the human body. An average individual can eat thousands upon thousand of calories a day, in fact there are guidelines which outline to do so. The issue is, what kinds of calories are we eating. And more importantly, what are the foods which contain these dirty calories.
So, back to the cupcake.
Once something is baked isn't it our duty to ignore the idea that it could potentially make our favorite pair of jeans a little tighter? Shouldn't we just give ourselves over to the pastry gods and realize that, yes, this cupcake has butter, sugar, eggs, flour and above all things frosting, and it is going to be amazing. Throw caution to the wind, peel off the paper enveloping the rich decadence that lay in waiting inside, carefully examine the outside edges, turning it in front of you slowly, as if it were the first time you set eyes upon it, questioning where to stop and take that fateful first taste. Pure ecstasy awaits you, sugar crystals dance before you like sparkling snowflakes atop a dark mountain, and then you find it, the perfect bite.
I'm sure you're not thinking about calories right now are you? Neither am I.
My point is, calories as well as cupcakes get a bad rap. Which brings me to Cancer.
A Neoplastic class of diseases plaguing millions upon millions in all corners of the world. No one can really pin point the moment when a malignant cell begins to mutate and cause an uncontrolled growth of similar cells which will then spread, invade, and thusly take over the body via metastasis. Of course there are a variety of pathways which cancer is shown to be caused, and one is by another C word, carcinogens, but we will save that for another time. Cupcakes and calories are obviously not on some kind of cancer causing list, no no no, but they are related to food. Food you eat. Food you put in your body. Food which is what your body runs and revs its engine on, what it is made up of. So, it is not just the first consonant of these three words that intrinsically links them, there is a fourth word that ties it all together, one which I have already mentioned, Cells.
Cells are the building blocks of life. Cells can grow, multiply, divide, replicate DNA, digest sugar into glucose, create by-products for use in the body, synthesize new proteins from amino acids, they can be large like an ostrich egg, or too small to see in a microscope. They make up everything around us and everything that is us. They contain all kinds of organelles with funny names like Golgi Apparatus and Smooth Endoplasmic Reticulum.
But I digress.
A Cell, a calorie, a cupcake and cancer all have a connection. That connection is us. You. Without the cell there would be absolutely no humans. Without humans, there would be have never been the invention of the wonderful cupcake. Without cupcakes, cakes, baking in general, there may not be as much stress about the idea of calories. And, this may be a stretch, but, without the stress over the amount of calories in the cupcake which we have baked and frosted so neatly, there may not be cancer.
So how do these all relate? It's not so hard to connect the dots, and really, I'm sure I could strategize all kinds of ways to connect more, but for now, I'll take the safe route out of this one and go bake up a batch of the famous Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes with Toasted Coconut Frosting; I can hear my cells just aching for them.
No comments:
Post a Comment