What 200 Calories Looks Like
Photo essay by WiseGeek. Maybe if you're dieting, you should do as I do (I'm not dieting, which is one reason I'm not a tub), and have some fun eating donuts...
and avoid boring bagels?
The fat in the donut will keep you full. The fat in the plain bagel? Negligible. You'll eat it at 9:30 and probably be starving by 10:15. If you have some kind of low-fat spread on it? You'll probably be starving by 10:16.
More photo comparisons at the WiseGeek link above.
Good point, Amy, but for some of us the sugar in the donut is problematic too. If I have nothing but a donut in the morning,esp. with coffee, my blood sugar is crashing by 12pm, which is an unpleasant sensation (I get shaky, sweaty and sometimes nauseous). I'm much better off to spend those 200 calories on an egg and a slice or two of bacon, or even a little cottage cheese and fruit. I avoid bagels entirely these days, as they give me heartburn.
deja pseu at January 29, 2007 6:07 AM
Eating some kind of fat is smart. I like Trader Joe bread with lots of nuts and fruit in it, and a small mountain of butter.
Amy Alkon at January 29, 2007 6:14 AM
Yes, my primary "in a hurry" breakfast is a slice of whole wheat toast with almond butter. Protein, fat, fiber, it's all there.
deja pseu at January 29, 2007 6:30 AM
It's an amazing achievement of liberal capitalism that obesity has become such a problem. And no, I'm not being ironic.
Norman at January 29, 2007 7:34 AM
I wonder how long it'll be before somebody grows really good meat in a lab? Would you eat lab-farmed meat? If it's really good? If it's really adequate?
Amy Alkon at January 29, 2007 7:40 AM
Tofu.
Crid at January 29, 2007 7:54 AM
I read an SF story about that many years ago - the meat in question was a lump of chicken muscle known to its "farmer" as Chicken Little. Ring any bells?
I don't have any problem in principle with eating such stuff, though in practice I'd want to know what hormones, isotopes, etc had been fed to it. Or at least that someone trustworthy had vouched for its wholesomeness.
We already have stuff like Quorn and Textured Vegetable Protein, which must be pretty much lab-farmed. Come to that, wine and beer are lab-farmed.
Norman at January 29, 2007 7:57 AM
I'll eat tofu -- but only if you wrap it in bacon.
Amy Alkon at January 29, 2007 8:16 AM
Calories are calories, and regardless of where they come from, they're going to make you fat if you don't burn them off.
But you are right that those bread/pasta carbs just pile on the calories and don't even keep you full. They're a good source of quick energy, but you only need that if you're riding a bike or exercising - not if you're sitting behind a desk.
Eggs seem like the perfect food to me - only a small amount of calories, but since it mostly comes from fat and protein, those babies keep you full for hours. And bacon .... mmmmmmm!!
Pirate Jo at January 29, 2007 1:17 PM
Re growing meat in the lab, I've always thought the best thing a true dyed-in-the-wool (har), sincere vegetarian could do for their cause, would be to inovate the whole process of vat-grown meat.
Purists would always say, just like the cannibals do, that there's nothing like the real thing, but cutting out the cost of raising/housing/killing the beast, the price cut alone would bring a big market, and a consequent vast reduction in the killing and eating of actual animals.
If we can make pleather...
Cat brother at January 29, 2007 5:45 PM
"I wonder how long it'll be before somebody grows really good meat in a lab? Would you eat lab-farmed meat? If it's really good? If it's really adequate?"
Oh yeah. Of course, I've read an awful lot of sci-fi in which meat was all vat-grown, but as long as it tasted like real meat, I definitely would. While I am a meat eater and will stay one for as long as I can chew, I am not unaware of the various ethical issues related to factory farming. (That's why I get so annoyed when non-vegetarians start slagging on hunters. I understand getting upset at the people who shoot creatures just to have heads to hang on their walls, but otherwise, you're talking about an animal that has a nice, free life until the very end versus a factory-farmed animal that has a really unpleasant life from start to finish. The hunter is definitely morally superior to me the passive meat-eater in my eyes, as long as he/she isn't, y'know, shooting Komodo dragons or anything like that.
Anyway, sorry, that was a long digression, but...yes indeedy, bring on the factory-farmed meat with the precisely-calculated levels of fat and the extra vitamins and nutrients. Who needs OJ - I can get my vitamin C and calcium from a nice, juicy vat-grown steak! With a little vitamin-B-fortified bacon wrapped all around it. Mmmmmmmm...
marion at January 29, 2007 9:39 PM
I had a flashback this morning of my 90 lb. grandmother putting butter on our sandwiches "to make them more filling." She also had a thing about small portions and not serving a lot of starches. Turns out she was right.
deja pseu at January 30, 2007 9:01 AM
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