Tailgating – the consumption of tons and tons of BBQ and companion foods in direct association with watching pro football Games – is as much a tradition in the U.S. now as the football, itself. The question millions of fans will be musing on later today as kickoff looms is, “Is all this dietary excess really safe?”
Tailgate only with your own lock down Bubble
mates this year. Next year? Who knows…
This is Super Bowl Sunday 2021, with the Kansas City Chiefs preparing to kick-off against the Tamp Bay Buccaneers at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa Bay in Super Bow LV. Prior to and during the game millions of fans not only in the stadium parking lot but in their own homes around the world will be settling in for the game at tailgating parties, and many will be asking themselves how unhealthy it is to join in the traditional pigskin pig-out. Is it okay to overindulge in Greasy BBQ foods, full of empty calories and the potentially-cancer-causing byproducts of cooking foods over smoke-billowing fires ‘just this once a year’?
Of course, lots of people – largely middle-aged men – will just go right ahead, heedless of the warnings and proven dangers. They’ll justify their excessive behaviour saying things like, ‘It’s a tradition; ya gotta have game day food on Game Day!’, and ‘Everybody knows you gotta balance the Beer with food to keep from getting sick!’
Unofficial start to game day was last night…
Saturday Night Live couldn’t resist sending up the Super Bowl with a special edition last night – judged by devotées as one their best since they came back from COVID-19 isolation.
SNL regular Keenan Thompson mocking the CBS Super Bowl pre-game show p0laying playing CBS Sports anchor, James Brown: “Hello! Welcome to the Super Bowl – four hours of television for 11 minutes of action,” Thompson’s Brown said. “I am James ‘No, Not That One’ Brown.” After acknowledging that this year’s Super Bowl would be (as everyone is saying about everything this year), like none we’ve ever seen before’, due to COVID-19 as well as abiding racial and political upheaval, he added, jocularly, “But today we come together in a spirit of unity to watch football – and murder billions of chickens for their delicious wings.”
Which got me to thinking…
Just how bad is tailgating to our bodies even one night a year compared, say, to the 4 hours of body shattering, concussion-generating action of a football game to the brains of pro football players?
Luckily, a new scientific study on the dangers and delights of tailgating came to light just this past week; just in time for the big game.
What they did…
A team from the University of Missouri-Columbia (UMC) which just happened to have a battery of blood testing machines and a machine to scan soft tissues like your liver handy. So they decided to conduct an organized tailgating party to simulate the excesses of an all-afternoon through all-evening game day party and obtain some concrete, qualitative numbers on the phenomenon.
The group, led by Dr. Elizabeth Parks, PhD, Professor of Nutrition and Exercise Physiology at UMC’s School of Medicine simulated a tailgating situation with a small group of overweight but healthy men and examined the impact of the eating and drinking on their livers using blood tests and a liver scan.
Parks studied 18 men who were given alcoholic drinks to elevate breath alcohol levels for five hours to at least 0.08 – 0.10 percent while they were provided hamburgers, chips and cupcakes. The men ate an average of 5,087 calories each which increased their blood levels of glucose, insulin and fats called triglycerides. Excess triglycerides, which are closely associated with high blood cholesterol, have been shown to be closely associated with the development of heart disease.
What they found…
In short, they found that, “nine men showed increased fat in the liver, five men showed a decrease in liver fat and one man experienced no change at all. Unexpectedly, those with an elevated amount of liver fat drank 9o percent less alcohol and tended to eat more carbohydrates compared to the other subjects.”
The takeaway…
“A potential explanation of these findings is that high carbohydrate consumption may have a greater impact on liver fat than alcohol in some people,” Parks said. “Given the high prevalence of overconsumption of food and alcohol in the U.S., further studies are needed in a larger population.”
My take…
Okay, Doc: Just get on down to Tampa Bay Stadium by about 2 this afternoon and start taking samples. But seriously, folks…
It all seems to boil down to personal physiology and genetic predispositions, in the end. And the scientists haven’t figured it all out, yet. So, potential tailgating chance-takers, get ready for your game-day finger food feast and ask yourself – to paraphrase Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry: “Do ya feel lucky?”
~ Maggie J.