Fuel

We've begun our coverage of nutritional products for the year 2001, and it got me thinking about the whole concept of fuel.

I'm astounded at the amount of work you get out of fuel, considering the nature of work, and the nature of fuel. I understand the chemistry behind the internal combustion engine, and yet I still think it's a miracle that you pour some saturated hydrocarbons into a holding container and the oxidation of these pushes your two-ton iron behemoth at a rate of 70 miles-per-hour.

Even more astounding to me is that the oxidation of two jelly donuts will propel a 170-pound behemoth over hill and dale on his bicycle for 70-miles. I look at the donuts and I wonder how on earth donuts, water, and air can generate so much work. I understand the science of that too, but I still can't get past the miraculous nature of those donuts and 175-watts of sustained power for two hours.

The godless atheist will deny this miracle and point out -- technically accurately -- that two jelly donuts won't take you 70-miles. They'll only take you half that far. The balance of the journey requires glycogen stores in your liver and muscles (last night's Spaghettios); fat stores as well (the hot fudge sundae after the Spaghettios); and certain vitamins (provided by the cherry on top).

I'll concede the point. Miracle of engineering though my Dodge pickup may be, were I to stuff Spaghettios, vanilla ice cream, and jelly donuts into its gas tank I wouldn't get far. That just tells you how miraculous -- and forgiving -- your body is.

While walking the dogs on the trails this morning I noticed all the new growth. The lilacs, black sage, gooseberries and mallows are all sprouting leaves. We've got a carpet of grass about four inches high in the meadows, and a layer of clover over the shaded ground. This is all due to a couple of days of light rain we had about a month ago. None of this required 92-octane unleaded super, or Spaghettios, or jelly donuts -- just nitrogen molecules floating around in the air, a little dirt, and some water.

Godless atheists will rightly point out that it requires more than dirt for all this to take place, it requires organic material. Fair enough. But you just try driving your car -- or riding your bike -- stuffing rotten wood and termite dung down into the appropriate fuel repositories.

I don't know who or what set this all in motion. I'll not know -- at least during this life -- which force or deity is responsible for it all. The miracle of its operation has been worked out for us, yet there is a slight bit of leeway afforded us -- where we can play around the edges and enhance what we've got to work with. So we fertilize the ground undeer our plants. We add folic acid to breakfast cereal (which means we extract the folic acid from the good food that we won't eat and return it to the bad food that we will it). And, when we go on our 70-mile ride we spike the water we drink with stuff that'll allow us to get from point A to point B with greater ease (miracles notwithstanding, jelly donuts will only take you so far).

That brings us to fluid replacement, the first of the nutritional categories we'll review. As I read what some very smart men and women have to say about maltodextrin and osmotic pressure it reassures me that somebody's out there looking after my nutritional needs while riding. But as I consider the miracle of fuel and how it works, I'm much happier that -- were I to have to rely on something other than a properly mixed 6% solution -- my body was designed to accomodate candy bars and jelly donuts in its place. Meditation on this phenomenon ought to be enough to move a godless atheist at least into the category of semigodless agnostic.