Is there a size bigger that jumbo?

Ok, the usual disclaimers apply here about my text entries, I swear that I will try and make this as coherent as possible... Well anyway my sister for the last week, has been away in the US on work. I saw her last night and the first thing that she told me about was the food over there. I must admit that there weren't many positives (none actually) and it got me thinking about the topic of American food and how EVERYONE says it so bad. Now at this point I know I should have gone out and got a copy of "Supersize me", but I can't be bothered to and I am certainly not wasting my download limit on that. Anyway I was looking around on the internet and I though these might be interesting, most of the time I am wrong though so I apologise in advance.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/magazine/22wwlnlede.t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

Also I have also been watching some American shows on the internet, so that mean I have also been watching some American adds, and wholly crap what have they done to there poor food. Once your in the website click view TV commercial.
http://www.chilis.com/menu/default.asp?Unit_ID=&tierID=66&menuType=Dine+In&menu=1

Ok, now watch this ass, err I meant add, really I did.


THE FREAKEN BURGER WAS THE SIZE OF HER HEAD!!! Now the good people of Carl's Jr. knew were to draw the line with the size of there burgers, fortunately sanity prevailed and those people all got fired and they brought in 5 guys from Texas made this salute to meat.

(At this point my lawyers are telling me that I should inform you that to the best of my knowledge no Texans were used in the production of the burger, how ever likely it seems.) This burger only contains 1,522 calories, 110 grams of fat(total) and 15 grams of sugar. Now very loosely the average amount of calories(daily) the average male of about 180cm who doesn't do much exercise and wants to keep his weight were it is, is about 2500 calories. That's over half the food you need to eat in a day in one very convenient football sized meal. You rule America!
(Not as convenient as the White castle suitcase of 15 burgers - )
Anyway, if anyone finds anything interesting on this topic, I would be more than happy to read it.

They both look awesome. I want some White Castle so bad (damn you Harold and Kumar).

The Chicago Deep Dish pizza rates up there as well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago-style_pizza


Check it:
http://www.mibazaar.com/fattestcountries.html

Somehow New Zealand is fatter than us. I blame the Maoris.

Trevor: For: giant food.

hmm, 21- good for us, and africa actually got one in the top 50. good for them.

And Nauru? What ELSE is Australia dumping there?

That article about the Farm Bill was thoroughly disgusting. I just can’t imagine how this works: that Fruit & Veg are more expensive than processed crud basically because of various subsidies and what not put in place; that the recommendations for children’s lunch at school is based on a crude and primitive measure of calories (or something); that America with their ever increasing consumption are eating other countries out of existence (perhaps a little exaggerated, and I’m sure America isn’t the only ones guilty, and I’m sure I contribute as well. But it’s still sickening). Somethin’s missin’! Especially when we see that this Bill is constructed in such a way as to purposefully make it difficult for people to understand. The system is obviously not working. It is shit. This has led me to start the other topic.

And the winner is:

http://www.menshealth.com/eatthis/20-Worst-Foods/1_The_Worst_Food_in_America.php

More than one days energy in a 'starter'.

This guy's pretty interesting. If only he didn't, somewhat tentatively, mention that crap about "when science gets it wrong" or whatever, but I'll chalk that more up to the wiener interviewer.

Go to the video links on the right hand side. The normal one is about 10mins and the extended is about 20min.
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2007/s2257391.htm

I'm far too lazy for that.

Summarise it in one word.

You dont have 10mins?! C'mon. He talks about food n stuff and other stuff... just watch it. Don't make me come round there Trev. And don't make me talk about 'the kids these days...'.

*exasperated sigh* !

I just ate a schnitzel burger and large chips... both with liberal lashings of gravy... i think i need a nap.

You can't just write something here because it's vaguely about food. This is not a topic to post any old, slightly food related, go-nowhere crudd! Keep to the point damnit!

Ah man, your meltdowns in this section are awesome.

There are the equivalents of candy in the cereal aisle that are sold on the basis of their whole grain goodness or all their added vitamins. So I think what confuses people is the proliferation of these health claims which it doesn't take a lot to get them on a package and they're often misleading and so I think that's a big part of the problem.

This shit has bugged me for quite a while. (I'm reading the transcript rather than watching the video.) The sheer ease with which nutritional information gets corrupted or skewed on packaging is awful. Ha, it's like your beef with potatoes, Andy, that because they're a vegetable, they're considered healthy, but they're really a pile of starch and sugars with trace vitamins.

Yeah, that candy quote was one of my favourites. It also bugs me, very much.

The potato thing, yeah. I remember reading that had the potato been discovered nowadays - instead of hundreds or thousands of years ago - it would have instantly been outlawed by the Food Administration dealie... though that was primarily because of the potato's potential lethality, with that disturbingly toxic green tinge they get if exposed to sunlight for a short period (and now we clean them and sell them in clear plastic bags instead of keeping them encased in a protective coating of crud and sold in a burlap sack, or whatever), but its meagre nutrional content certainly provided no reason to keep it.

http://www.realmilk.com/what.html

I do believe that most of the health problems in western society are due to the garbage we eat, which we then try to fix with drugs.

Drugs are bad m'kay.

Don't listen to Mr.Mackey, drugs don't afraid of anything, okay?

Yeah, that 'real malk' thingie seems to have some good points - except that one about pasteurization increasing pathogens... what the? I'm no doctor but something sounds a little wrong with that. I think the real take home message that needs to get across, especially to these people, is that we really shouldn't be drinking cow's milk at all, period. It's for cows! And on that note, we really shouldn't be eating cow's meat either. Not to totally rag on cows and all, because they're tasty and kinda cute, but they really don't seem to be doing us humans any favours in the health department. The only reason we eat them is because they're there, and we like to eat stuff. I'm pretty sure the cow's main contribution to humankinds domination was to contribute extra muscle power (I guess the milk was probably benificial), and then we figured 'hey, they're here now, I wonder what they taste like?'. So it's almost like the cow's revenge...

So we should eat people meat?

(ho ho ho)

There is a rating system for protein based on how well we absorb and use it. It's done relative to breast milk which is the best food for us too eat. After that comes eggs. Cow milk and beef both rate highly, higher than other animals and much higher than plant protein.

We should harvest human milk. Mmmmm..... tastes creepy.

Do you have a source? I would like to see this chart (and not have this turn into What Some Bloke In The Pub Told Me).

If only protein absorption had any relevance to overall health, hey... To not mention anything about the multitude of other subtances in meat besides proteins.

Protein itself is important, unlike carbs you actually need it. Same with fat. Two things beef is high in (although the fat varies a lot depending on the cut). The system of measuring protein quality is PDCAA or something. The system does have flaws though. The reason plant proteins rank poorly is because their amino acids are typically incomplete but if you eat different sources you CAN get complete amino acids - problem solved. Don't know how many vegetarians actually mix the right ones though.

I don't actually eat much beef. I get most of my protein from eggs, whey, lamb, fish, chicken etc

Protein = Essential Amino Acids
Fat = Essential Fatty Acids
Carbs = Essential Fuck All

Since protein is essential I'd say it's absorbtion is important to overall health.

Maybe I should be changing the word absorbtion to quality.

While we are on the subject of food, I read a news article a few days ago about salt in food. They were saying how Australians get too much and that people found the info on food packets confusing. They want to dumb it down and call sodium salt instead. I think there was more changes they wanted too. They said that the average person couldn't be expected to understand the 'scientific jargon' on the packets. I'm no scientist but I thought that everyone knew what the sodium on the packet refered to.

They also said they wanted to lower the salt in food to get the average sodium intake down (it was something like 10g of the stuff). I added up mine for a few days and found I was getting on average 1g of the stuff which is bad because it is essential and might explain my low blood pressure. It made me wander how the hell people were getting 10g of it. I've started adding MORE salt to my diet. What the FUCK are these people eating?

I'll try and find the article and see how badly I've referenced it.
EDIT: Here we go
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=74715

Well, you basically live on cheese slices and ketchup, don't you? Or was that just for my benefit and while I was out you were enjoying sumptuous banquets?

edit: how much salt are we supposed to have?

edit edit: well, the article says:

Most Australians consume 10 grams of salt a day but could comfortably survive on just four grams

Okay, I love all this back and forth stuff, but I just want to comment on some things because I'm an anal stickler for these kinds of things.

Did you get some of this info from those Protein Muscle Gainer kits with the pictures of those freakishly musclely meat-heads on the container, that suggest the recommended dosage of: "eat this 5 times a day, then go buy some more."? Because I gotta say, some of that stuff sounds way bogus. E.g. Carbs = non-essential: way bogus. Plant protein amino acids incomplete? I know all those words but that sentence makes no sense. But I think I get what you mean, I just wanted rag on stuff to pretend that I know things...

That salt thing was great. People do eat a lot of crap. And I'm one of them. More salt on that?