Growing up in a low-income family in the suburbs of Detroit we had nuts once a year. At Christmastime my father brought home a
5-pound bag of mixed nuts all firmly encased individually in rock
hard shells. Over the next five days, with the aid of a mechanical
nutcracker and a steel pick, the six members of the McDougall family
ate almonds, Brazil nuts, cashews, hazelnuts, pecans, and walnuts.
These days, eating nuts is as convenient as unscrewing the lid off
of a glass jar, and then pouring an ounce of shelled, oil-roasted,
nuts directly into your mouth. After seven chews and a swallow, in
fewer than five seconds, 120 calories of fat are gulped down. Within
three hours much of that fat is stored as metabolic dollars to be
spent during the next famine. |