With a good dose of humor that makes one wonder if this this is purely a humorous post or whether there is actually any truth involved Jeff Ruby tells the tale of the effects of eating nothing but hamburgers for 65 days straight. Now personally I don’t think I could do that for more than a week at the most so kudos for the strength of character (or the size of the expense account) to be able to do such a gastronomical feat. However Jeff at some point discovered an unintended consequence of doing such in depth research for an article about the state of the hamburger in Chicago.
He was turning stupid – literally.
Armed with nothing more than a C in high-school biology, my laptop, and a history of cyberchondria, I sought medical answers online. Fifteen minutes later, while finishing my leftovers from Kuma’s, I concluded that I was not permanently stupid—I had developed a mild case of cognitive dysfunction syndrome. CDS (a.k.a. brain fog) can be caused by anything from mercury poisoning to constipation and leads to confusion, difficulty concentrating, and forgetfulness. It also appears mainly in dogs. The warning signs described online sounded familiar: aimless wandering (did this at Epic Burger), inappropriate vocalization (Moody’s), and sudden loss of appetite (Boston Blackie’s).
One night, a frozen turkey fell from my fridge and bonked my noggin, and I barely felt it. I had literally become a numbskull. That’s when I knew, without the aid of scientific proof: Saturated fats had eroded the connections between neurons in my brain.
Lucky for Jeff though the effects are not permanent, it just takes a while to recover
My recovery so far has been excruciatingly slow.
These days, I celebrate small victories, like the fact that I can once again carry my kid in from the car without getting winded. Trouble is, I keep taking him to the wrong apartment.
