Avoiding the Hydrogenated Chocolate Sauce
How do you politely refuse to eat something that is bad for you, when a hostess prepares it so proudly and offers it so gracefully? If you refuse, you offend the hostess. If you eat it, your conscience will bother you for days. You will not die if you eat it -- at least not right away. Eventually we will all die, so what is the harm of eating a little hydrogenated chocolate sauce?
Generally, big problems result from the accumulation of small problems that are easily ignored. When the problem is big enough, sometimes it cannot be fixed. A little mole that gets irritated and bleeds occasionally, may turn out to be fatal melanoma which would not have been fatal if the mole had been removed in time. Gaining one pound of weight per year may not seem too bad, but by avoiding this gain of 1.3 ounces per month we may be able to prevent diabetes and cardiovascular disease when we get older.
The Horseshoe Nail
For want of a nail the shoe is lost
For want of a shoe the horse is lost
For want of a horse the rider is lost
For want of a rider the battle is lost
For want of a battle the kingdom is lost
And all for the loss of a horseshoe nail
-- George Herbert (1633)
© Copyright - Antonio Zamora