CONFIDENTIAL FILE

Fascinating Stuff About Cholesterol

Listen, did I ever tell you about my cholesterol?

Now
wait a minute. Don’t just walk away. This is pretty fascinating stuff.
And, if you don’t mind my saying so, far more intriguing than the
inside story of your appendectomy.

Cholesterol is the latest
boon to the cause of hypochondria. It has a certain ring to it that
bursitis never had. And, obviously, it’s a damn sight more glamorous
than post-nasal drip.

According to the best informed, most
expensive medical sources, my cholesterol is too high. Consequently, my
physician has put me on a special diet prepared by the Ultra-Centrifuge
Group, Donner Laboratory, University of California. How about THAT?

The
boys out at Ultra-Centrifuge have whipped up a nifty little
low-cholesterol diet which, if followed faithfully, is comparable to
being set adrift in the Pacific Ocean without survival rations.

They
begin by warning you away from anything that contains egg yolk or
butter-fat. And, of course just about everything worth living for does.
Then they add a few unkind words about a multitude of other dining
potentials.

These are the "visible fat" foods. If there’s any
delicacy not indicated under this heading, it gets picked up in a
dragnet a few paragraphs down which is labeled "invisible fats."

Perhaps
to soften the stunning impact of this blow to the appetite they tell
you that marshmallows and molasses have no cholesterol fats. So, go
have yourself a ball.

It may seem as though the only solution
is to resolutely kick the eating habit altogether. But the diet offers
hope, at least, for advanced mathematicians. In one chapter it
instructs: "Estimate the fat in mixtures and baked foods according to
the amount of fat in the recipe. Divide this total amount by the number
of servings to get the amount of fat in each serving."

I don’t
have any idea what that means, but I was willing to give it a whirl.
As a dinner guest at the home of friends last week, I strolled casually
into the kitchen. The cook watched me with a dark glint of suspicion in
her eyes. "Zum zing?" she asked.

"Just checking for invisible
fats," I told her pleasantly, lifting the lid from one pot. "Green
peas," I noted. "Afraid I’ll have to ask you to wash the cream sauce
off mine."

"Vass ist?" she said.

"Egg noodles," I murmured, glancing at another pot. I shook my head decisively. "Out of the question."

Overstays Welcome

The cook glared, and edged her way protectively in front of the stove. "Bleaze," she demanded, "mitt za hands off za pods and panz."

I peered over her shoulder. "I see we’re having chicken. Will you be good enough to peel mine?"

She looked at me incredulously for a long moment, then pointed at the door and shouted angrily: "Oud!"

"I’m going," I told her, taking my good time about it. "You don’t have to get huffy, Heidi."

I left her wallowing in high cholesterol, and didn’t touch a thing at dinner. I haven’t been invited back since.

However,
it doesn’t matter. I get along pretty well these days on marshmallows.
True, they cement my gums together. But, after all, a man must eat to
live.