This is a story about insulin. A small, fussy fellow with a key, and why understanding him might change how you think about food.
Once upon a time, inside every human body, there lived a tiny kingdom called Cellville.
Cellville was a happy place, full of busy little workers who needed energy to do their jobs. Some workers built things. Some workers fixed things. Some workers just ran around being generally excellent.
But to do any of it, they needed fuel.
The fuel came from outside, dropped in by the giant above. That's you, by the way, you enormous, terrifying, sandwich-eating giant.
Now here is the important thing about Cellville.
Every single door in Cellville was locked.
Not because the workers were unfriendly. They were perfectly nice. They just had a rule. Fuel could not enter a cell without a key.
There was only one key in all of Cellville.
It hung on a small chain around the neck of a small, fussy, officious little fellow named Insulin.
Insulin wore a tiny badge. He took his job extremely seriously. He was insufferably proud of the key, and he wanted you to know it.
Whenever the giant above ate something sugary (a cookie, a soda, a handful of whatever those orange cracker things are) the Sugar Goblin arrived.
He was not invited. He was never invited. He came anyway.
The Sugar Goblin was sticky and loud and absolutely delighted with himself. He came flooding into the bloodstream like a flash flood through a canyon, whooping and hollering and getting into everything.
And this didn't happen once. It happened again. And again. And again. Morning, afternoon, night.
Every single time, Insulin had to deal with him.
He would sprint through the bloodstream blowing his whistle, key jangling against his chest, unlocking doors as fast as his tiny legs could carry him.
Click. Click. Click.
Doors flew open. The Sugar Goblin rushed in. The workers got back to work, which was really the only way to get rid of him.
Insulin felt very important. Which he was.
But here is where it gets interesting.
When there was TOO much Sugar Goblin, more than the workers could possibly use, Insulin had a problem.
He couldn't just leave the Goblin floating around in the blood. That would be a disaster. Sticky, gumming up everything, causing all manner of chaos.
So Insulin did what any sensible bureaucrat would do.
He called the warehouse.
The warehouse was a big, dim, quiet place on the outskirts of Cellville. It didn't build things or fix things. It just stored things.
"Got some extra," Insulin would say.
"Send it over," the warehouse would say.
And the extra Sugar Goblin got bundled up, changed, and packed away as fat.
The warehouse never complained. It had excellent storage capacity. It could expand almost indefinitely, which it did, and did, and did.
Now here is the secret the giant never knew.
As long as Insulin was running around blowing his whistle, the warehouse doors stayed locked from the outside.
Meaning: the stored fat could not get out.
It just sat there. Waiting. Growing.
The giant above felt tired and hungry and wondered what was wrong.
Nothing was wrong. Insulin was just doing his job. The giant had simply never learned what the job actually was.
Then one day the giant stopped leaving the door open.
No cookies. No soda. No handfuls of whatever those orange cracker things are.
The Sugar Goblin stopped coming.
Insulin sat down. Caught his breath. Put his whistle in his pocket.
The bloodstream got quiet.
And slowly, for the first time in a long time, the warehouse doors creaked open.
The stored fuel didn't need a key. It was already home. It just needed the doors to open.
It drifted out into the bloodstream. The workers cheered and got to work, and this time they had more energy than anyone could remember.
Cellville itself began to change.
The bloodstream ran cleaner and quieter, like a river after a long drought finally clears. The workers moved faster. They laughed more. Someone noticed they could see all the way across town because the warehouse, slowly and with some embarrassment, was shrinking.
It had not been small in a very long time.
Up above, the giant noticed things too. Pants that had stopped being friendly became friendly again. The feeling of waking up like a sack of wet sand quietly disappeared. Energy arrived in the morning and stayed, which was new, and strange, and extremely welcome.
"Where has this been?" the giant said.
In the warehouse, said no one, because cells cannot talk.
But Insulin smiled. Just a little. In his small, fussy, officious way. And gave the key a little polish.
The End.
The moral, if you need one: it wasn't the fat. It was the flood.