A Super Bowl snack that'll take 1.69 years off your brain

Government interference into my preferred foods, declaring what’s good and what’s not, what’s delicious and what‘s poison, what’s allowed and what’s banned, is killing me.

Information not seen in our pages until now is the Food and Drug Administration‘s official ban last week of Red Dye #3 in food, beverages, and drugs. It’s understandable. But the behind-the-scenes process is such that, should things continue, pretty soon we’ll be eating raw hay with warning labels affixed to stems.

If you see me eating raw hay anytime, anywhere, you can bet that the world has gone sideways, and I have lost my mind in its entirety. Which is the topic of today.

A new study that I had to read twice because I forgot what I read the first time suggests that regularly eating processed red meats — hot dogs, salami, sausages, bacon (BACON !!), wiernerschnitzel, Normal Foods I call them — increases your likelihood of developing dementia and cognitive decline.

That must be why I’ve been hearing little mutterings among friends, colleagues, and family (especially family, especially), whispers that are nothing more than cleverly encoded declarations affirming that the Old Guy is losing it, generally speaking.

Their evidence is the usual stuff: losing car keys, forgetting birthdays, wondering what year it is, whether or not I had lunch, did I take my medicine, can I draw a clock face, and what’s up with the price of eggs?

Nothing unique. Just your day-in, day-out inquisition of a parent and inevitable mental slippage.

This particular study that you understandably forgot or dismissed, as did I until I reviewed my notes, was published last week in the Can’t (remember to)-Put-It-Down journal, Neurology. Talk about a riveting read! I hung in there for the first couple of sentences. That was it. My brain pivoted to whether I needed new tires on my car.

Daniel Wang was an author of that study. He’s also an assistant professor of nutrition at Harvard. Another high-falutin’ clutch of vocialite vegetarians bragging about bean sprouts in their studies.

He said replacing processed red meat with plant proteins lowered your risk of dementia by 19%.

Well, not YOUR dementia, mind you dear reader (how would he know?). Not mine, either, because I’ve moved on to whether I’m going with Continental tires or an off-brand retread, which I forgot why it was important. And 19%? I burned more brain than that in college.

Since you bring up bean sprouts, I have to ask: Is that a FOOD? I went through a bean sprout phase for a couple of minutes a hundred years ago when someone in the house, someone very very beautiful whom I envisioned as my eventual bride, someone who once we were married recommended putting raw hay a.k.a. Bean sprouts on a grilled cheese sandwich.

I did. It looked like a pile of hair atop some cheddar. It tasted like a pile of weeds raked into the ditch. And that was that for bean sprout inclusion in my very fine diet.

“Each additional serving of processed red meat daily was linked to an extra 1.69 years of cognitive aging,” read a simplified summary of this complicated survey. This “simplified” summary was not understandable to me, best as I recall. Does this mean I get an EXTRA 1.69 years of brain decline? Or that I LOSE 1.69 years of brain decline. Or that my decline won’t start for another 1.69 years? I can’t figure it out. Keep it simple, I say.

One researcher that makes some sense (though this researcher has not seen my upcoming menu of Super Bowl foods) is Yian … Yian … oh, what’s her last name? Rhymes with “you.” Oh yeah, Gu.

She’s yet another neurological scientist and said. … She said. ….

“Hey, Poteat,” I yelled across the newsroom. “What did you have for breakfast?”

“Livermush, biscuit with sausage gravy, bacon, eggs, hash browns, toast, and a couple of pancakes,” he said.

“You just lost, or maybe gained, 1.69 years of brain power,” I said.

When?” he said. “Last year?”

Yian what’s-her-name said the only thing that makes sense to me. She said that it’s “often difficult for people to change their longtime dietary habits … (but) eating more legumes is associated with less brain atrophy,” wrote the Washington Post this week.

I have no idea what a legume is. None. In fact, I don’t even remember ever seeing that word. What my dyslexic eyes see is, “lunatics.” Not many lunatics get brain trophies, best I know.

Another report I read somewhere, but forget where, said, “Processed foods disrupt neurodevelopment by inducing chronic inflammation, oxidative stress, and insulin resistance. These factors impair synaptic plasticity, neurotransmitter balance, and hippocampal function.”

That sounds like something you spread on ice-covered roads, so your new Continental tires don’t slide. How in the hell am I supposed to read and process that and conclude that I shouldn’t eat a hot dog? (I love hot dogs. I can’t remember the last time I had one. It’s time for another.)

What is clear is I am going to keep Benesh, Gu and the other poison-food gurus away from my house on Super Bowl Sunday. If you think my brain is shot now …

… Come into my house during pre-game interviews and you’ll be treated to a plateful of ammonium bicarbonate and dough conditioners, maltodextrin, sodium benzoate, sodium phosphate, sodium nitrite, potassium lactate, sodium erythorbate, powdered cellulose, monosodium glutamate, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate, and a few artificial flavors.

For us simpletons with declined and poisoned brains, that’s Bagel Bites.

What’s not to like about Bagel Bites? After eating them for about 20 years, you, like me, won’t remember just how good they taste, or maybe you’ll remember this for another 1.69 years, or you’ll forget in 1.69 years, especially when you wash them down by throwing back some ice-cold formaldehyde, isinglass, dimethylpolysiloxane, barley, rice, hops and yeast, a.k.a. BudLite.

And then what you’re supposed to remember but can’t for the life of you recall now even if wild horses were prying details from memory banks, won’t make any sense, either.

Promoted bigtime during the Super Bowl are Mr. P Pringles and a cascade of the cheesiest cheesy pizza ever invented and sold everywhere.

We’re talking about mouthfuls of disodium inosinate AND guanylate, tertiary butylhydroquinone, sodium phosphate, annatto extract, and, Lord help us, Red Dye #40 and Yellow Dye #5, monodiglycerides for texture, riboflavin, sodium stearoyl lactylate, disodium guanylate and sodium citrate.

You’ll be tempted to eat more of this Rot-Da-Brain food. Not that you’ll win a prize. You just won’t remember the occasion. No problem. You have 1.69 years to figure it out.

A clue will be when you open the freezer. If you’re like me, you’ll see the empty Bagel Bites box that you hammered back onto the shelf because you did not realize the box was indeed empty, or you forget whether the box was full, or maybe you just figured the box lived there. After all, a warning label on the side read, “KEEP FROZEN.”

Why not run out and BUY SOME MORE, and take another 1.69 years off your brain, or add another 1.69 years. Or divide 1.69 by your daddy’s birthday. (Just remember to carry the one.) Whatever the hell. Heads I win, tails you lose.

Gold Fish, anyone? Keep those ice-cold formaldehyde-isinglass-dimethylpolysiloxane concoctions coming.