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status update

2011-01-09 19:31:06.383374+00 by Dan Lyke 10 comments

More damage has been done to the American psyche by "fat is bad" propaganda than any other movement. "Lite Ranch Dressing"? Just. So. Wrong.

comments in descending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: made: 2011-01-12 10:23:59.797031+00 by: DaveP

other_todd, I'm a big consumer of bottled salad dressing, so maybe I can explain.

Due to my work / eating schedule, when I get home from work, I'm hungry. I want something fairly quick. I manage to cook something real for dinner probably three of five work days (one day eating out, and one with either frozen pizza or other factory food), but most of my energy goes into the main dish. The vegetable side is frequently pre-packaged, pre-washed "mixed greens" with bottled salad dressing because it's quick and easy (when it's not, it's usually canned veggies). Mixing up my own salad dressing would be possible, but at this point, I'm happy that I'm eating vegetables at all. More prep-time would just mean delaying dinner, or skipping the veg entirely.

Maybe I'll progress to mixing up my own salad dressing (and the bigger step of keeping the ingredients for that on hand and fresh), but for now, those bottles of chemicals with a seemingly infinite life when refrigerated are pretty darned handy.

#Comment Re: made: 2011-01-10 23:11:34.556924+00 by: jeff

Dan--this is not the only root cause, but I see obese people in the grocery store and I look at their toddlers walking nearby and very clearly I can see the same basic gene set and physical characteristics working against them.

It's not all poor diet and it's not all lack of exercise, but both of those contribute horribly, to be sure.

#Comment Re: made: 2011-01-10 20:19:41.294195+00 by: other_todd

I've never really understood bottled salad dressing. I'm no food snob, it's just that there doesn't seem to be any reason for them to exist. The convenience is marginal (for most of them, their real equivalents can be mixed in two minutes from common ingredients), they're definitely more expensive than doing it yourself, and they never taste as good. I can only conclude that the market for them is people who either 1) don't KNOW how easy it is to mix your own salad dressings because THEY HAVE NEVER HAD THEM or 2) are so incredibly lazy that even those two minutes can't be spared.

#Comment Re: made: 2011-01-10 18:11:04.510998+00 by: Dan Lyke

Mike, yeah, the "glycemic index" is a total farce: The idea that fructose has a lower glycemic index because it has to go through your liver (and create lots of LDL in the process) is bizarre.

Jeff, I think there are some theories on various viruses which may trend towards obesity, but I also think the fact that we are unwilling to push a shopping cart 45 feet back to the collection area, and instead abandon it in the parking lot, has a lot to do with it.

Larry and Todd, I keep getting reminders to stay on the perimeter of the grocery store...

#Comment Re: made: 2011-01-10 16:38:40.156634+00 by: other_todd

Re the blue cheese: I was told that pretty much any "chunks" of alleged blue cheese in any bottled salad dressing were fake (whether the label touts fat-free or not) because the heat used to pasteurize the dressing to make it shelf-stable would melt any chunks of actual blue cheese in there.

What are they actually made of? I'd guess probably some soy compound.

#Comment Re: made: 2011-01-10 15:21:03.515456+00 by: Larry Burton

Over the past few years, with more and more friends and family turning up diabetic and trouble keeping my own blood pressure under control I've been more and more concerned about what I eat and getting some sort of exercise on a regular basis. It use to be that I was just too tired at the end of the day after sitting at my desk to feel much like exercising. As I started removing processed foods from my diet I noticed I was feeling more like doing things at the end of the day which gave me even more energy and allowed me to sleep better. I backslide with my diet from time to time and have noticed that it doesn't take much process food to make me tired again at the end of the day.

Personally, I think the problem we have in the US with our weight is directly related to food manufacturers turning their kitchens into laboratories. Having done a good bit of work in the food industry I've come away from a number of jobs just shaking my head at what goes into some of our snack foods. I can not eat any of the cheese flavored snack foods anymore after working around a line making cheese puffs.

#Comment Re: made: 2011-01-10 12:42:55.407122+00 by: jeff

America is quickly becoming one of the most "obese" countries on the planet?

I look at people in the malls and think to myself, that can't just all be diet and lack-of-exercise related? Have Americans inherited a formally dormant "fat gene?"

But with manufacturing all-but-gone in this country, certain segments of our society are not getting the workout at work that they once had.

#Comment Re: made: 2011-01-10 05:17:43.687675+00 by: mkelley

The sugar-free stuff is ridiculous too. When I was type II diabetic, I ate a lot of the stuff. Then when it flipped over last year, I started looking more at the carb count, and it's the.same.thing....some times lower carbs. Instead of sugars, you wound up with hfcs or all kinds of horrible chemicals. So, I've decided to just eat what I wanna eat, take my insulin shots, and manage my intake much better....not like I've ate horribly either.

#Comment Re: made: 2011-01-10 02:15:42.372002+00 by: meuon [edit history]

Laughing... What I see is certain people eat a -lot- of stuff, because it's "fat free" that I barely qualify as edible. A little bit of real butter and cheese is a lot better for you than the chemical sludge often masquerading as food.

#Comment Re: made: 2011-01-09 21:16:54.144926+00 by: ebradway [edit history]

A greater oxymoron is "Fat Free Blue Cheese". Wish-Bone makes a Fat Free Chunky Blue Cheese which begs the question: Chunks of what?