Eat Your Heart Out

Sometimes, having friends with medical degrees is really fascinating.
Got involved in a conversation with a couple of pals this morning, Jessica and Steve, both of which have had some medical training.

"Fat's yellow," said Jess at one point, when the conversation had turned (as it occasionally does when talking to medics) to cadavers and autopsies. "Looks like little corn kernels. And it's all slippery and greasy..."
"So butter undergoes no particularly impressive change from the moment you spread it on your toast to the moment you haul it round on your ass?" I asked, thinking this might be an impressive visual deterrent for me the next time I have toast for breakfast. (Y'know, because the Xenical effect is such old hat by now!).
"Pretty much," she agreed, more in jest than in medical expertise.
"Doesn't fat accumulate round the heart?" asked Steve.
"I thought it accumulated round the heart so the heart could, y'know, 'eat' it to keep pumping?"
"It accumulates in the grooves and the vessels of the heart, yeah," said Jess.
"So the groovier your heart is, the more chance you have of dying because of cardio-fat?" I asked, thinking about it.
"That must really piss off the hippies."
"How would you tell if a hippie was pissed off?" asked Jess, not unfairly.
"Mind you," she added, "the heart would eat itself to keep pumping. It'll use muscle as a fuel given the opportunity, rather than fat."
I blinked.
"So you really can 'eat your heart out?" I asked.
"Yep," said Jess.
"Well..." I said. "That's...erm...interesting."
To be honest, it was more than interesting - it gave me another great element for the Faustian story I started last night. And now, I guess, it's given me a blog on a night when all I can tell you is I walked a few miles and bikes a few hundred calories and ate some toast and fruit today, ta-dah!

Oh, and that my blood was 6.0 this morning, which was pretty much to be expected, as last night's dinner included some gorgeous corn bread. Spread with butter...

Damn 'corn kernels'!