Sunday, August 27, 2006

Repost Sunday: Medical Journal Finds Barbequing Therapeutic

I rerun some of my older posts on Sundays as a way to highlight stories that you may have missed. Just think of it as 'thought recycling' and a day off. This was originally posted July 12, 2006.

A big, fancy named medical journal recently announced the findings a 7-month study. The study was aimed at determining any medical link between stress and BBQ cooking. During the study, one individual was asked to grill food at least 5 times a week using a charcoal grill while a second patient grilled the same number of meals using a gas grill. Both patients’ stress and life enjoyment levels were monitored from the time charcoal preparation began through the plating of the cooked meat.

Researchers were able to determine that from the moment the charcoal lighting began, stress levels dropped 72.3% and the LEF (Life Enjoyment Factor) increased 97.8%. The only negative impact on the LEF was observed when there were fire maintenance issues before and during cooking. Remarkably, the patient’s stress levels sky rocketed during final grill brushing at the post-BBQ stage. Similarly, the gas griller experienced roughly the same pattern of performance. However the gas-using patient was only able to reduce stress levels by 64.2% and showed an 83.4% LEF increase.

The results clearly show that BBQ use is a strong contributor to life longevity. The highly controlled and scientifically monitored study proved once and for all the superiority of charcoal grilling. One could almost assert that charcoal briquettes are as essential for a healthy body as Vitamin C and rest. The same fancy medical journal hopes to conduct a similar experiment with key lime pie and coconut cream pie for tonight’s dessert.

5 comments:

Odat said...

More food????

Anyway this is probably more a result of a) men doing the grilling b) it's done outside c) they feel relieved doing it there so they don't hear their wives yelling about what a mess they're making d) they're alone when doing it.
A shame, ain't it? ;-)

Peace

Pawlie Kokonuts said...

Ah, so much less stressful than the days of my youth, when my father used this electro-prong plug-in thingy to get the briquettes going -- after about 39 mins. Thanks for your great comments over at Bobby G's site, Michael. And our jints are chasing your boyzz!

Justin said...

Very intriguing. I would be interested in checking out the article?

Did they say how they measured stress levels? I am guessing something like salivary cortisol levels for such precision in quantitation.

Unknown said...

I ususally crack the first beer about the same time as I light the grill. 1 beer = 10 % stress level reduction. Usually by 7 beers I have reduced my stress by 70%. Let alone not being able to touch my ass with either hand.

I think the data was skewed as they did not take alcohol intake into the equasion. Hell adding beer to the BBQ might just cause a creation of happy and spread through the entire neighborhood.

LOL

thethinker said...

Your blog is turning into the food network! Everytime I read it I get hungry.

First those darned girl scout cookies, then the chocolate, and now BBQ!