Delicious Death Wish
I’m Dan Piraro, the creator of the Bizarro newspaper comic. Each week, I post my Sunday Bizarro comic, a short essay, and then the past week’s Monday-Saturday Bizarro comics written and drawn by my partner Wayno, whose weekly blog post I highly recommend.
And here’s this week’s ANSWER KEY to my Sunday comic’s Secret Symbols.
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Hey there, Jazz Pickles. Thanks for stopping by.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time over the years trying to understand nutrition and have come to a conclusion: Conclusions are pointless. At least for now.
As a big believer in science, I am amazed that this late in history, scientists still have not come to a consensus about diet. Aside from a few obvious principles, there is no unified field theory. After years of inquiry and consideration, I’ve come to strongly suspect that, like hairstyles and sexual practices, no single approach works for everyone.
I’ve known people who are religiously dedicated to various food cults, each claiming theirs is the best diet for everyone. (I’m a little embarrassed to admit I’ve done that a couple of times myself, in totally different directions.) I’ve known vegans, vegetarians, raw foodists, fruititarians, pescatarians, Paleo devotees, Keto evangelists, and people who would not eat anything that casts a shadow.
A word that comes up a lot in all diets is carbohydrates. I’ve not conducted experiments or published any studies, but I’ve come to believe they affect people differently. I can eat carbs day and night with no weight gain or negative side effects; other people just think about a slice of bread, and the button pops off of their pants.
One area there seems not much debate about, however, is sugar. Too much sugar without fiber is deadly for pretty much anyone, though some of us are more susceptible than others. (My understanding: Eating a piece of fruit includes fiber. Pretty much any other form of sugar is without the mitigating effects of fiber, including home-squeezed fruit juice.) And because sugar is so wickedly addictive, our helpful friends in the processed-food industrial complex have crammed extra sugar into almost every edible product. Correspondingly, the vast majority of us writing or reading this are racing toward diabetes.
I always thought diabetes went with obesity. I figured if you’re not overweight, you can’t be diabetic. Not true. I’m naturally thin and because I virtually never drink sodas or eat candy, I thought I was safe. Also not true. My blood test last year told me my blood glucose level was as high as a fourth grader the day after Halloween. Bees were following me around. Hummingbirds were drinking my sweat. Sales representatives from the insulin industry were parked in an unmarked van outside my house.
So I made some changes in my habits and I hope my next test will show some improvement.
It turns out the Hansel and Gretel myth is not about wandering too far from home or not trusting strangers, it’s about processed foods. The witch is diabetes (and notice she’s not obese). The house is the average American diet, though you don’t have to be eating desserts and candies to be regularly consuming way too much sugar. That leaves the children to play the part of unwitting pancreases, assuming they have enough insulin to defeat an entire cottage made of building supplies infused with high-fructose corn syrup.
At the end of the story, the kids are tossed into a cage while the witch prepares to cook and eat them. I’m going to say the cage represents our dependency on the pharmaceutical industry to provide affordable, life-saving insulin for the rest of our lives. That’s a cage I’m working hard to avoid. I’ll let you know how it’s going after my next blood test.
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As far as I know, Wayno adds no sugar to his cartoons whatsoever, so let’s review his Bizarro snacks for the week…
Somehow, I find it comforting to learn that one of my favorite films was written by monkeys.
Leave it to a couple of neo-dinosaurs to argue over who got the best barf.
He looks like the kind of neighbor you might trust to take care of your cat while you’re out of town.
Wayno mentioned in his blog post this week that the ball on the left is a nod to our mutual buddy and cartoonist colleague, Jim Horwitz.
He also describes the Nancy Fest he attended last weekend. I’m sorry I missed it.
If you’re into heavy meta, you can’t do better than the legendary group Iron Bunnies of Doom. We’ll be offering a T-shirt with that logo soon, so watch for it.
Maybe if you hadn’t tried to tie her to a railroad track.
With an imaginary fireworks finale and a mediocre high school band fumbling its way through the national anthem, we say goodbye to this week’s graphic humor festival. We hope the fried wads of butter wrapped in cotton candy didn’t upset your tummies. If you like that we’re doing this for free, please consider helping us keep it that way via the links below. Out of gratitude and respect, we’ll stop throwing darts at your picture.
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