#159 - by the time i get to arizona (pt 2)

during the first two days of my trip to arizona to visit the sis, we tried something called "guacummus," paid a visit to a famous breakfast joint in phoenix & brewery in tempe, and mixed in some at-home snacking. over the final two days of the trip, we just kept on eating with a purpose.

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snackdown! - 3.5.10

on tuesday, health affairs released a study that tracked children's snacking habits from 1977 to 2006, a study that found that children snack three times a day and take in an average of 600 snack calories per day, a 168-calorie increase over children in the late seventies. since everybody's got their panties in a bunch about snacking these days, as if the dietary habits of children is the biggest thing we have to worry about, every news outlet on the planet decided to report on the study. children are snacking too much! they're turning into tiny michelin men! won't somebody please think of the children! blah blah blah. get over it people.

• reason #1 that constant snacking & eating isn't a bad thing: olympians do it. on tuesday, the national post took a look at the dietary habits of olympic athletes to see if we could learn anything from them. it turns out that we can. the article notes that "if there is one good behaviour that unites many top athletes, it's their habit of eating frequent meals and snacks throughout the day." "eating a balanced snack every few hours can help regulate blood sugar, maintain energy throughout a busy day and reduce cravings and overeating at mealtimes." as long as you're not sitting on your ass all day snacking on doritos & cookie dough, constant snacking is just fine. suck on that, snack haters! (national post)


• it's girl scout cookie season & last sunday in southern cali, six chefs gathered together for the "smart cookie chefs' challenge fundraiser," an event where each chef created a dish using girl scout cookies. while two of the chefs went the obvious route & made tasty desserts, the other four created "savory recipes that included crab, pork, chicken and lamb." we're talking dishes like "carrot, apple and daisy-go-round stuffed pork tenderloin on creamy polenta with a pinot noir reduction" & "chicken breast stuffed with peanut butter patties, prosciutto and coachella valley dates." those both sound amazing, but ultimately, the people's choice award went to geoff bogorad, who used lemonade cookies to create lemon-crusted crab cakes. (the desert sun)


• today was the final day of snaxpo 2010, the annual snacking convention that this year was held down in dallas/fort-worth, home to such snack kings as frito lay. snaxpo, which is now in its 73rd year, was attended by over 2,000 "snack food professionals." with all the attention being given to unhealthy snacks these days, it's a crucial time for the convention, as more & more, snack manufacturers have had to come up with ways to appeal to concerned consumers while still producing tasty snacks. the most important takeaway from the event: snaxpo is "the world's biggest trade show," once again proving that snacks rule. (nbc dallas/fort-worth)


• in new zealand this week, weight watchers announced that they were teaming up with mcdonald's to offer three "weight watchers approved meals." it makes TOTAL sense, because when i think of dieting, the first thing i think of is fast food. the three meals--the filet-o-fish meal (with a side salad & drink), the six pack chicken mcnuggets (with a side salad & drink) and the sweet chilli seared chicken wrap (with a drink but no salad)--are each worth 6.5 points, about a quarter of the 28 daily points allowed as part of a weight watchers' diet. unfortunately, all three meals have enough sodium to choke an elephant. (seattle post-intelligencer)


• popcorn's pretty much our national snack, an air-popped treat that folks often rely on to make the cinematic crap that comes out of hollywood tolerable. not everyone loves popcorn though & on wednesday, just in time for this sunday's oscars, slate's rosecrans baldwin decided to pen "an admittedly irrational screed against popcorn." why? four reasons: he can't stand popcorn. he hates the smell. he thinks it "looks like sheep shit." as studies have pointed out, a tub of movie-theatre popcorn is entirely unhealthy. if americans stopped eating so much of it, we could divert those kernels to ethanol production & reduce our dependence on foreign oil. while he admits that his hatred of popcorn may be irrational, at least he's passionate about it & in his mind, that's all that matters. (slate)

nosh nook #179 - thursday, november 19, 2009

upscale mcdonald's brings european style to nyc
(link)
11.18.09 - abc news - by karen matthews, a.p.

i've always known that mcdonald's was the hippest, coolest, most in-touch fast food joint out there. back in the 90s, they pitted larry bird & michael jordan against each other in a game of horse, with the winner getting michael jordan's big mac & the loser having to watch them eat it. so cool & totally culturally relevant. over the years, they've had their hands in some of the best movie tie-ins ever. i'm telling you, if it wasn't for the mcdonald's toys based on the film, nobody would've gave a crap about finding nemo. for the record, i still have dory & she spits water & she rules. anyway, they've been damn good about keeping up with what's radical & tubular with the world's youth & pretty much every ad campaign they spit out gets the ol' "i'm lovin it!" treatment from consumers.

their latest move: according to an abc news article taken from the a.p., mcdonald's has finally decided to bring the same chic style they've been using in france & the u.k. to the united states. after introducing the "sleek" style to european mcdonald's a few years back, they've decided that americans in chelsea, the gayest (& by default chicest) neighborhood in nyc, are finally ready for a european-style mcdonald's, complete with "outlets for plugging in laptops" & "subdued lighting." it also means that customers at the locale can now say "bye bye hard plastic seats" & "hello upholstered vinyl chairs." it makes sense. the boys in chelsea love vinyl.

paul hendel, the owner of the chelsea franchise, had this puzzling comment on the new setup. "we're becoming a more relevant type of restaurant for the younger crowd. they don't feel rushed. they're reading the newspaper, relaxed." my two cents, paul: i hear you on them not being rushed, but if you think the younger crowd is hanging out reading the paper, you need to do a bit more research. the newspaper's been dead for years, dude. you're on the right track though. a large reason behind mcdonald's embracing the loungy, european-style setup is that they finally realized that in this post-9/11 world, people enjoy taking their time & doing something while they eat. asian mcdonald's have functioned as a hangout for teens for a while now, but their cultures are WAY more advanced than ours. it's good to see that we're finally catching up though. now if we can just get a mcdonald's at MOMA, we can catch up to france.

nosh nook #160 - friday, october 23, 2009

to complete your day, the windows 7 whopper (link)
10.22.09 - cnet - by scott stein

it's official, geek faces. yesterday, microsoft finally unleashed windows 7, their latest & greatest operating system, on the world. from what i've read, this time, rather than adding a bunch of useless, buggy crap to their new release, they focused on improving & streamlining what they had. that's right. as of yesterday, if you wanted to upgrade your pc's OS, all you had to do was hop on a torrent site & grab yourself a free copy. thanks, technology! we need to get excited people! this weekend, you should throw a windows 7 torrenting party to celebrate!

since they love new technology in japan, they're wicked excited about windows 7. according to cnet, to commemorate the release, japan's burger kings started selling "windows 7 whoppers" yesterday. the sandwich is seven patties & five inches tall & when they introduced it, it was "for a special price of 777 yen ($8.50); at least, for the first 30 customers." burger king's been known for pulling some slightly inappropro promo stunts over the last decade or so & this one has to be up there in the top three.

as cnet points out, it's interesting that they're pairing an OS "touted as 'leaner and meaner'" with a gut-busting sandwich. seriously, i don't see how anyone but kobaishi could eat this thing. as it is, a triple whopper has 1160 calories, so the windows 7 whopper has to be somewhere in the 2500 calorie range. that's like a whole day's worth of calories for a salary man. on a related note, the this is why you're fat book comes out next tuesday. i guess the windows 7 whopper won't be featured until their next book.

nosh nook #148 - wednesday, october 7, 2009

first look: calories on fast-food menus don't change choices (link)
10.07.09 - washington post - by jennifer larue huget

...so back in july of last year, as one of mayor bloomberg's many "we're going to stick our nose into your business" initiatives, nyc passed legislation requiring restaurants to post calorie counts on their menus. the thinking behind it was that once people were able to see how many calories they were consuming when they ate, they'd cut down on fast food & start eating healthier. thinking that this would be the result takes a bit of specious reasoning, as for many low-income citizens, being able to afford to eat usually takes precedence over being able to eat healthy. value meal!

as the washington post reports, the results of the first study measuring the effects of the legislation have come in & they're the complete opposite of what was expected. health affairs, a peer-reviewed medical journal "looked at fast-food purchases made in low-income areas of new york city...and, as a control, in nearby newark, new jersey, where no such requirement exists." they compared receipts & interviewed customers & found little difference between consumers' actions before & after the law went into effect. in nyc, the number of calories consumed actually went up. the post captures it best in the article's opening line, which is no more than the word "oops."

what went wrong? the study offers a few possible reasons. "the timing was wrong." "the sample size (was) too small." "maybe...there should have been a sign telling people that 2,000 calories is the most they should consume in a day." the post suggests that "maybe people just don't care--or would prefer to ignore--the number of calories they're consuming when they eat fast food." the study, the post & the mayor don't seem to be considering that other factor i mentioned. if you're a low-income mother looking to feed a family of five after getting home from a ten-hour shift & KFC offers you a deal on a twenty-piece bucket of chicken, you're going to take it, calorie count be damned. i guess when you're a medical journal, a 200+ year-old paper or a billionaire mayor, that scenario doesn't cross your mind.