Let's Hear It for the FAT Cells!

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved for fried foods everywhere

FAT!  We see it all the time, on the television, in the dieting aisles, walking down the beach, in the mirror.  We are bombarded with commercials selling the latest FAT reducing pills, drinks, rubs, wraps.  Skinny Minnies are effortlessly walking, climbing, lifting, twisting, or running on the latest torture contraptions released by the CIA.  These devices are guaranteed to give you washboard abs, a flat stomach, tight buttocks and endless trips to the chiropractor for twenty-four easy payments of $19.99 and a 300 calorie diet.  Our whole society has bought into the idea that FAT is BAD.

I am here to defend FAT.  Think about it.  In the culinary world fat makes the taste buds happy, happy, happy as Phil would say.  Without fat, potatoes would taste like library paste, Julia Childs couldn’t have named her book “The Joy of Cooking” and Paula Deen’s hair would have been too big for her body. Fat is to humans what a fur coat is to people in Miami.  It makes a statement.  It says “I have this and I am going to keep it whether you like it or not.”

Fat keeps whales from freezing in the Arctic waters.  Early man would have found himself unenlightened without bowls of fat to burn and shed light on his cave drawings.

Insurance companies should be giving discounts for an abundance of fat.  Statistics show that people with an ample supply of fat suffer fewer severe injuries from a fall than their skinny counterparts who are lacking in padding and are more likely to suffer broken bones.  Pirates carrying a hefty load of fat have also been known to survive longer on a deserted island than their thin shipmates.

In ancient economic systems, if you were worth your weight in gold, wouldn’t you like to be heavy on the scales?   It just might enable you to prevent foreclosure on that condo in Maui.

Without FAT our vocabulary and literature would be sadly lacking.  Who can forget fat lip, fat chance! fat bank account, padded expense account, padded cell, and padded seats?  Minnesota Fats, Fats Domino, Jabba the Hutt, the Hulk might never have made it into our literature and onto the silver screen had they been thin.

Great artists from the Renaissance and Baroque periods honored fat in their paintings and sculptures.  Fat happy cherubs adorn doorways and buildings.  Rotund and amply fed women were highly sought after as models.  A long legged, tall thin Barbie would never have made it as a model in those days.  Twiggy would have been passed over as ugly, unattractive, and definitely too thin.  No stick figures for the world’s greatest artists.

Therefore, let the world salute FAT!  May it keep us warm in winter, protect us when falling, bring us wealth when weighed, and sustain us when marooned on deserted islands.  We thank you for flavoring our food, our language, our literature, and our art.

Hippy!  Hippy!  Hooray for FAT!