The unholy trinity 36 healthy exercise that keeps it fit, preventing constipation and decreasing the risk of a range of bowel problems including the most common cancer in adults – bowel cancer. Of these four groups the first food off the energy cab rank is alcohol – i. e., given a choice, alcohol is our body’ s favorite form of energy. This is not so surprising when you remember that pure alcohol is a highly flammable fuel – in other words its energy is ready to go. The next cab off the rank is protein followed by carbohydrate. The least preferred fuel and the last macronutrient food group to be used if our body has a choice is fat. 8 But what does this mean for our daily energy mismatch? Well, if we start the evening meal with a glass of beer or wine, eat meat and three vegetables( typically including potato) and finish with a sweet dessert, let’ s look at what will happen. After an evening meal is the time people unwind and watch television – our peak viewing time. With such a low energy requirement chances are the alcohol alone will be enough to power our body until bedtime. But let’ s say we get to use the protein in the meal. I think you can see that we would be lucky to burn very much of the carbohydrate and almost none of the fat would be used. Now of course, the body doesn’ t completely finish burning one fuel before moving onto the next – it is about the mix – but I think you get the idea and can see the problem. Both fat and carbohydrate can be very energy dense – i. e., they carry a lot of energy or calories. The bulk of unused carbohydrate is converted to fat. 8 For much of the physiology I discuss in this book I rely heavily on the work of Professors Jennie Brand-Miller and Stephen Colagiuri, a Dietitian and Endocrinologist respectively. This subject is discussed in more detail in their best selling book The New Glucose Revolution.