Urp! Time for a nap
Aristotle's Thoughts on the Thanksgiving Food Coma
Posted by Ross Pomeroy at RealClearScience
Today, the vast majority of Americans will join with friends and family to sit around long, festively decorated tables -- landscapes beset with colorful mountains of sweet potatoes, cloudy lakes of gravy, hearty plateaus of turkey, and endless fields of green beans. Revelry will be had. Laughter will be shared. Food -- lots of food -- will be scarfed.
Afterwards, Thanksgiving partakers will retire to comfy sofas and padded chairs, perhaps watching football games or challenging relatives to rousing games of Scrabble or Parcheesi. The lively merriment will continue, for a time. But in scenes as sure as fridges stocked with feast leftovers, loud cheers will quiet to mutters, cheeky banter will diminish to soft pleasantries, and Uncle Bob will be soundly snoozing on the recliner, as postprandial somnolence, the condition more commonly known as "food coma," sets in over the gathering like a dense, dreary fog.
Food coma may seem a recent phenomenon -- one brought on by the age of never-ending buffets and fast food -- but it didn't escape the observant gaze of the Greek philosopher Aristotle, who theorized, "...while food is being digested, vapors rise from the stomach because of their higher temperature and collect in the head. As the brain cools, the vapors condense, flow downward and then cool the heart, which causes sleep." The more food is consumed, the greater the effect.
Posted by Ross Pomeroy at RealClearScience
Today, the vast majority of Americans will join with friends and family to sit around long, festively decorated tables -- landscapes beset with colorful mountains of sweet potatoes, cloudy lakes of gravy, hearty plateaus of turkey, and endless fields of green beans. Revelry will be had. Laughter will be shared. Food -- lots of food -- will be scarfed.
Afterwards, Thanksgiving partakers will retire to comfy sofas and padded chairs, perhaps watching football games or challenging relatives to rousing games of Scrabble or Parcheesi. The lively merriment will continue, for a time. But in scenes as sure as fridges stocked with feast leftovers, loud cheers will quiet to mutters, cheeky banter will diminish to soft pleasantries, and Uncle Bob will be soundly snoozing on the recliner, as postprandial somnolence, the condition more commonly known as "food coma," sets in over the gathering like a dense, dreary fog.
Food coma may seem a recent phenomenon -- one brought on by the age of never-ending buffets and fast food -- but it didn't escape the observant gaze of the Greek philosopher Aristotle, who theorized, "...while food is being digested, vapors rise from the stomach because of their higher temperature and collect in the head. As the brain cools, the vapors condense, flow downward and then cool the heart, which causes sleep." The more food is consumed, the greater the effect.
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