It's so easy to make Kevin happy: just suggest going on a wiener run. We recently made a return dash out to Renninger's Market in Kutztown, PA. It was a nice day, a little cool and fairly breezy, but still a good day for a drive. So, off we went.
We were a little more restrained with the amount of our purchases this time. I think we got much the same kinda stuff as last time: deli; some kind of tubular meat in a ring; produce; pie; jerky; nuts; fish. I don't think we got much meat (why do I not think of the tubular stuff as 'meat'?)...no steaks or bacon. No bacon! How did that happen? That stuff's delish!
There's this stand with some pies, bread and cookies on it. This time there were mini whoopie pies, too. This old Amish guy always says the same thing when you go by: 'Need some pies?' Now, does anyone really need pie? How to know whether or not one needs pie? Upon consideration, we determined that we hadn't a single pie in our possession so perhaps, yes, we did need pie. But just bc we didn't have any pie, does that mean we needed pie? Well, the place was closing soon and we didn't have time to jaw over it and hash out a definitive answer before closing. Not wanting to take any chances wrt pie deficiency, we decided to be safe and not sorry and bought a pecan pie (Kevin's favorite). They were all sold out of the regular size, so we got the mini size or, as Kevin calls it, the single serving size.
I got some jams for myself. Sometimes, I get on these rolls wrt food. I've been having Cheerios for breakfast for the longest time...over a year. Occasionally, i have porridge. Well, I've recently switched from Cheerios to an exciting alt breakfast food item: toast. Yes, I've rediscovered toast. Always with butter. Sometimes with jam. I'm lovin' it.
Speaking of I'm lovin' it...we watched Supersize Me yesterday. Ya know, I enjoy the occasional Mickey D's now and again, but I dunno how that guy could eat there 3x/day for a month. It was interesting and informative, although I thought it drew some unfair/unfounded conclusions.
Apparently, two girls' parents sued McD's for making the girls fat:
In August, a suit filed by the parents of two girls claimed that McDonald's and two of its restaurants in the Bronx failed to disclose clearly and conspicuously the ingredients and effects of its food, much of which is high in fat, salt, sugar and cholesterol.
What? Neither the girls nor their parents thought the food tasted very salty? Or fatty? Or sweet? That's why it's so yummy!
The plaintiffs argued that McDonald's should therefore be held accountable for the girls' obesity, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and elevated cholesterol.
The girls are Jazlyn Bradley and Ashley Pelman. Bradley, 19, is 5 feet, 6 inches tall, and weighs 270 pounds. Pelman, 14, is 4-foot-10 and 170 pounds.
Bradley said that a McMuffin for breakfast and a Big Mac meal for dinner was her regular diet. Pelman preferred the Happy Meals and used to eat at McDonald's three or four times a week.
Who lets their kid eat that much takeout, never mind that much McD's?
Bradley's father, Israel, said he never saw anything in the Bronx restaurants that informed him of the food's ingredients. "I always believed McDonald's was healthy for my children," he said in an affidavit.
Why did he believe that? Putting aside that McD's food taste salty, fatty and sweet, i.e., it tastes like it's got a lotta salt, fat and sugar in it...why would he believe McD's food is healthy? Just bc he doesn't know that it isn't healthy to eat as much McD's as his daughter did, doesn't mean that he knows it is healthy to do so.
Samuel Hirsch, the lawyer bringing the case, called McDonald's food "physically or psychologically addictive." Hirsch accused the company of deliberately withholding information and targeting children. The effects of its food on people's health were "a very insipid, toxic kind of thing," Hirsch said.
Hirsch also was critical of McDonald's billion-dollar advertising campaign. "Young individuals are not in a position to make a choice after the onslaught of advertising and promotions," Hirsch contended.
It's called marketing. Pretty much anyone with something to sell does it. If they deliberately withheld info...yes, that's wrong. But they want to sell their product...who are they supposed to target? Health nuts? Sure, they target people they think most likely to buy their stuff: parents, busy people, kids, families. And maybe children 'are not in a position to make a [healthy food] choice after the onslaught of advertising and promotions'. They probably aren't. But (a) people have to develop some mental backbone when it comes to evaluating info and making decisions; (b) might as well start developing this backbone while people are young - they're not going to magically acquire it on their 18th birthday; (c) it's not anyone else's responsibility to figure stuff out for others (although, again, they should not withhold important info, especially if requested); (d) again, what parent lets their kid eat that much crap food?
Okay, okay, okay, I know there are parents who let their kids eat that much crap food. Maybe it's easy. Maybe it's cheap. Maybe they don't much like grocery shopping and cooking. Maybe that's how they grew up. Maybe they don't care. How are their decisions re: what their family eats somehow the responsibility of someone else? Sure, most kids like to eat at McD's...and even if you've discussed nutrition and cost and yadda yadda yadda with them, they're still likely to eat more of that crap than health conscious parents might like. I just don't understand this business about shifting responsibility to someone else for rather personal choices.
And where does a kid get the money to eat that often at McD's? Even with an allowance, does it never come up between a parent and the kid that much or all of the money goes to buying food from McD's?
McDonald's lawyers added it would be impossible to establish whether eating at McDonald's was a major cause of the girls' ailments. Genetics, medical conditions and sedentary lifestyles could also be factors, they said.
Judge Sweet's ruling dampens the hopes of fellow New Yorker Caesar Barber. Barber, 56, filed a suit in July against McDonald's, Wendy's, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Burger King. The 272-pound Bronx resident alleged that their food caused his obesity, two heart attacks and diabetes.
A McDonald's spokesman in the United States told CNN in a telephone interview that "this is one person's opinion. Eating McDonald's food can easily fit into a balanced diet. I eat its food every day and I'm perfectly healthy."
The film mentioned Don Gorske, who's eaten 20,000+ Big Macs in his life, since eating Big Mac #1 in 1972. He's maintained a healthy weight of 170 lb. and a very healthy cholesterol level of 140 through all of this. He calculates he eats, on average, two Big Macs/day. The film gave him pretty short shrift, considering this guy's been eating crappy food for a whole lot longer than 30 days and is thriving. So what else is going on with him? Is he a lumberjack who works off all those calories? Does he simply have good genes?
The film's narrator/director (Morgan Spurlock) and several participants talk about how much more often people eat out now. One guy claims that the obesity epidemic in America isn't bco simply eating out more bc, e.g., there have been neighborhood restaurants for the longest time. Basically, he's excluding certain things as the cause of the epidemic and then concluding that it's bco fast food restaurants. Well, duh, if I ate at yer average neighborhood restaurant (i.e., not a health food restaurant) 3x/day for 30 days, I'd prolly experience some, perhaps all, of the ill effects Spurlock experienced from eating at McD's for 30 days. If I ate everything on the menu at Roma at least once and ate there 3x/day in 30 days, I'd prolly gain 25 lb. in 30 days. Easy. Don't dare me! So if (a) people are eating out lots more than they used to; and (b) they're eating at lots of eating establishments; it's not necessarily only bco fast food restaurants that people gain weight and experience other ill effects of excess weight.
The movie did point up some major duhs wrt American obesity and health, e.g., the crappy food in schools, including fast food. And the decline in individual daily physical activity, including the decline in or elimination of phys ed in schools.
Now, lest anyone think I'm some overly healthful, stick thin, holier than thou type...well, I'm not. At least, I'm not overly healthful or stick thin...you can decide if I'm holier than thou. Anyway, I've been overweight much of my adult life, have made many attempts to lose weight, have only occasionally had any notable success, yadda yadda yadda. Except for a bout w/CFS about 10 or so years ago, not once did I ever feel that my weight was out of my control. And wrt CFS, I did not feel that my weight was out of my control bco my eating choices, but rather mainly bc (a) I lacked the energy to be as active as I had previously been; and (b) I was pretty depressed, esp before I knew what the deal was, and pretty much let myself go in many areas. I can't say I felt better once I knew what the deal was, but at least I knew that, bc CFS usually lasts from 6 mos - 2 years, and that I'd been exhausted for some time already, it shouldn't be long before the fatigue lifted.
Also, lest anyone complain that bc I don't have kids I don't know how hard it is to get them to eat right, to not overindulge, etc. You're right; I don't have kids. But I used to be one. And I'll wager I was at least as sneaky as the next kid. (As an aside, wrt sneakiness, I had an advantage in that my youngest older brother - who's 2 years older than me - was, as they say in the child label vernacular, a holy terror. By comparison, I was an angel, so no one ever suspected me of doing anything wrong or bad. And yes, I did use that misconception to my advantage. My first 'real' job was at Friendly's. One of the other girls working there was this brother's classmate. When she learned my last name, she asked if we were related. She couldn't believe we were bc, as she put it, 'You're so good and he's so evil'!)
Anyway, back to childhood food sneakiness. I traded away lunch food I didn't like. Usually, I just brought it home and slipped the offending piece of fruit back in with the rest of the fruit. I prolly brought the same piece of fruit back and forth to school until someone else finally ate it. For some reason, when I was very young, we ate 'dinner' around 4 pm, when my Dad came home from work, and then had 'supper' around 9 pm. Supper was almost always something small, like a little soup. I usually had a few sips, stirred it around until my parents were done and left to watch the news, then poured it back in the pot. My parents were of the 'there are children starving in Africa'/WWII/Depression generation, so I learned to be sneaky about rejecting food w/o hearing about it. Bc I almost always had a paper route or some sort of little job, I always had money to buy whatever food, junk or otherwise, that I might want at school or out goofing around with friends. I don't recall my parents discussing nutrition, but I also know I never bought just chips or fries for lunch, like some of the kids in the movie did. I always chose something normal and fairly healthy (well, what was considered fairly healthy at the time: some kind of protein, some kind of starch and some kind of veggie, although not always all three things; usually a protein and something else; oh, and milk! glorious milk!) for lunch, and sometimes got something like a cookie or ice cream for a snack later, maybe at softball practice (well, not the ice cream). I guess I was used to meals at home including a little of each, so that's what I ate when I was at school.
So, no, I don't have kids, but yes, I do remember standard kid modus operandi. Children can be sneaky little bastards. And I say that in the nicest way...you don't want your kids to be total and complete lemmings, for goodness' sake. It takes brains and creativity to be a successful sneaky bastard.
I do sometimes think that not having many sweets at all in the house when I was growing up may have contributed to my sweet tooth. I don't think my parents thought treats were bad to have in moderation; I just don't think they could afford them, even in moderation. Then again, maybe I just have a sweet tooth.
Well, listen, all this talk...I'm starving...I gotta go eat something. While that movie was kinda gross ito what eating so much McD's did to that guy, oddly enough, it also made me want to go right out to McD's. However, my stomach wasn't feeling so good and adding the 'McBrick' feeling (that feeling, noted in the movie, you get after eating at McD's that you have a brick sitting in your stomach) to the mix would not have been a good idea. Bon appetit!
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