Sure, you feel like your stomach might explode after you indulge in Thanksgiving gluttony, but it probably won’t. Can bad stuff really happen when you stuff yourself with traditional treats?
Although people perpetuate the urban legend every year around this time, the tryptophan in turkey is not responsible for the Thanksgiving food coma. (In fact, you get tired because your stomach steals blood flow from your brain to help digest the huge meal.) Still, there are plenty of other ways in which your tasty Thanksgiving feast is out to get you.
WISHBONES: NOT ALWAYS SO LUCKY
People swallow weird stuff all the time. The most common unintentionally consumed objects include dentures, toothpicks, cocktail sticks, and bones—all of which make regular appearances at gatherings revolving around family and food. And, when people eat too much, too fast…or when they talk so much, they don’t chew properly…or when their dentures don’t fit right, they often don’t even know they’ve swallowed anything unusual.
In 99% of cases, these ingested “foreign bodies” pass right on through. But, in the unfortunate 1%, these objects can punch a hole in the intestines along the way. This depends on the length and the sharpness of the object—but toothpicks and bones tend to be pretty long and pretty sharp. As they journey through the intestines, they tend to do their damage in places where the tube gets narrow or takes a turn, like where the small intestine meets the large one or where the large intestine meets the rectum.
A hole in the intestine, called a perforation, requires immediate surgery. Patients complain of severe abdominal pain and often have a fever. The tricky part is that these symptoms often show up about two weeks after the ingestion—so even if someone knows they swallowed the wishbone, they often won’t relate it to the pain.
It’s better to avoid this problem altogether. So slow down, chew your food, and make sure whoever carves the turkey does a good job.
DOES A “CEREUS” PROBLEM LURK IN YOUR MASHED POTATOES?
Raw potatoes almost certainly contain some Bacillus cereus—a ubiquitous bacterium that is usually killed when food is cooked. However, B. cereus can form heat-resistant spores that lie dormant until the right conditions trigger them to germinate. These spores are particularly resistant to dry heat, making them well-suited to survive the manufacturing process of dehydrated potato flakes.
The spores themselves are harmless, but when you add heat and moisture (i.e. when you cook the potato flakes), they transform into normal bacteria, able to grow and reproduce. Strains of B. cereus that flourish in starchy foods produce an emetic toxin—i.e. a poisonous substance that makes you vomit.
At least 100,000 viable B. cereus cells per gram of food must get together to produce enough toxin to make you sick. Levels of B. cereus spores in American boxed potato flakes have been measured between 100 and 4000 cells per gram. They can still wreak havoc. It only takes 2.5 hours from the time the flakes get rehydrated until the bacteria starts to grow, so boxed mashed potatoes that are not served right away can cause problems.
If you opt for the convenience of dehydrated potato flakes to make your mashed potatoes this Thanksgiving, make sure you don’t let them sit out on the counter for too long. The vomiting associated with B. cereus toxin can hit within one hour of consuming contaminated food. That sure would ruin the pumpkin pie.
GRAVY-TRIGGERED REVENGE OF THE LITTLE GREEN STONES
The average Thanksgiving meal contains 229 grams of fat—more than three and a half times the recommended daily allowance. That often means pain for the more than 20 million Americans with gallstones.
A normal gallbladder is a robin’s-egg blue pouch plastered to the underside of the liver. It stores bile, a greenish watery substance that the liver produces for fat digestion. Gallstones, which are most common in women over the age of 40, form when too much cholesterol gets into the bile. The cholesterol then crystallizes into greenish pebbles that reside in the gallbladder. Thirty-five percent of people with gallstones never even know they are there.
The other 65% know it all too well. After a fatty meal, the small intestine produces a hormone called cholecystokinin (CCK) that tells the gallbladder to contract and release bile. The problem comes when a gallstone finds its way into the duct and prevents bile from coming out. The gallbladder keeps squeezing against the obstruction—which can cause excruciating pain, nausea, and vomiting.
The symptoms usually resolve within minutes to hours: the stone either drops back into the gallbladder or slips through the duct and into the intestine. If attacks occur frequently, the gallbladder can be removed. Sometimes, the offending stone gets hopelessly stuck, leading to a swollen and inflamed gallbladder. These patients don’t get better and usually require surgery sooner rather than later.
So, especially if you know you have gallstones, lighten up on the gravy—if you have to go to the emergency room, you’ll miss all the football games!
NO TURKEY TROT FOR A SORE TOE
Many people associate gout with Henry VIII and lavish Renaissance banquets, but our traditional Thanksgiving spread has much in common with those lavish feasts. Indeed, many elements of our Western diet put us at risk for problems associated with dietary extravagance. There are 3-5 million people with gout in the United States, and the number is growing.
Lots of stuff on the Thanksgiving table–organ meat (i.e. giblets in gravy), white meat (i.e. turkey), and fatty, cholesterol-laden foods–contain high levels of a chemical called purine. Usually, the kidneys break purine down into uric acid, which simply gets peed out. But, some people either can’t get rid of uric acid or make too much of it. The excess uric acid in the blood forms sharp, spiky crystals that collect between the joints and cause a very painful type of inflammatory arthritis.
These acute gouty attacks usually involve a single joint, most frequently where the big toe meets the foot. The joint gets red and swollen and is so painful that people describe not even wanting the bed sheet to touch it at night. The attack peaks about 12-24 hours after symptoms start, and (even without treatment) goes away by itself within a few days to several weeks. In the meantime, anti-inflammatory drugs, like ibuprofen and its stronger cousins, can help treat the symptoms. Some people, who have chronic problems with gout, must take medications every day to try to prevent it.
Almost everything served at the Thanksgiving meal can cause problems for someone with gout. Even peas and asparagus are high in purines, and the yeast in beer also commonly triggers flare-ups. So, be careful—you don’t have to run in a turkey trot to get sore joints from Thanksgiving.
LOADING UP OUR PLATES
One third of Americans are overweight, more than one third are obese, and Thanksgiving isn’t helping. What American hasn’t chuckled about holiday weight gain?
It’s easy to overlook packing on a few extra pounds over the holidays. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine almost 10 years ago suggested that people only gain about one pound over the holidays, but that the extra weight never comes off. Over the years, that adds up.
Another study, more specific to Thanksgiving, measured the weights of 94 college students before and after their Thanksgiving breaks. Participants also gained a little over one pound on average. More concerning, students who were already overweight or obese gained more than two pounds, suggesting that a group already at risk may only add to their problem at holiday time.
So enjoy Mom’s candied sweet potatoes in moderation—or else you might regret it 50 years and 50 pounds later.
Katie
2 years ago
Don’t forget to properly store your leftovers, too.