What is metabolic health, anyway?

Metabolic health refers to your body’s ability to efficiently convert food into energy and extract the nutrients it needs for optimal health. When your metabolism is working properly, you experience more sustained energy, fewer cravings, easier weight maintenance, better mood, and mental clarity.

Unfortunately, 88% (some say 93%!) of U.S. adults are metabolically unhealthy. Metabolic dysfunction is at the root of obesity and most chronic ailments, such as pre-diabetes or diabetes, high blood pressure, high triglycerides (which increase the risk of a stroke), fatty liver disease, mood swings, and even depression. Metabolic syndrome refers to the whole cluster of ailments caused by metabolic dysfunction. 

With Yom Kippur soon approaching, our thoughts turn to the most important fast of the year – and, perhaps, to fasting in general. Although we Jews may be among the few in our secular society to still fast for religious reason, we are not alone in observing religiously mandated fasting. From Ramadan to Lent, in Hinduism and Buddhism, abstaining from food and drink has been a universal practice across cultures and faiths.

What stands out for Judaism’s 25-hour fast on Yom Kippur is the prohibition not just from food but even from water. One might note that in Buddhist practice, only advanced ascetics, under the guidance of an experienced teacher, fast without water for this long. But regardless of the timing or severity, the goal of religious fasting is not punishment but purification: a way to turn inward, reflect on one’s life, and reconnect with G-d. 

Not so long ago, there was a scourge upon the land. More American men were having heart attacks at a rate not previously recorded. It was the late 1950s and 1960s, when the economy was good and food plentiful. So why was heart disease on the rise?

Scientists looked all over for a cause and solution. (The notion that the rising rates of cigarette smoking may have been a contributing factor was discounted as the tobacco companies claimed that cigarettes were harmless.)

Food dyes Red #40, Yellow #5 and #6, and Blue #1 are chemicals that most Americans feed their children on a daily basis. They make food look pretty but how certain are we that they are safe?

True, the FDA has concluded, based on long-term animal studies, that these dyes “do not pose significant health risks.” The amount that is “safe” for children has still not been ascertained. And the fact that some dyes have been found to produce tumor growth in animals while others contain small amounts of benzene, a known carcinogen, has not yet shaken the FDA from its conclusion about their “probable safety.”[1]

With the increasing number of words being misused or so overused as to render them almost meaningless, I want to throw in my two cents. Not literally, of course – though from what I hear around me, some people may be waiting for me to ante up. When did so many people become enamored of the word “literally”? When did it morph from meaning “free from allegory or metaphor” to “really” or “very”?

Okay, I get that “really” became boring, but do we really need “really” (or “literally”) in most cases? Or do some people just think the more words they use the smarter they sound?

But beware: That plan can backfire – as when Sean Hannity proudly announced that “some politicians literally hate my guts.” I don’t think it’s your kishkas they dislike, Sean. 

Or when an eyewitness to a crime tells the reporter she was “literally shocked by what the man did.” I hope there was an EMT unit nearby.

My favorite example of the misuse of “literally” is from the book reviewer who interviewed the author of a harrowing account of a war-torn part of Africa. The reviewer concluded that the author had “literally been to hell and back.”

Now that’s a person I’d like to interview!