Link Dump: Food-That-Will-Kill-You Edition

Food linkage from around the Interwebs:

The Daily Beast presents a gallery of the "20 Unhealthiest Cereals." (As if any of 'em are healthy.)

The most shoplifted food in the world? Cheese.

Rainn Wilson loves Del Taco for a reason.

Speaking of fast food tacos, it's not a good idea to firebomb your local Taco Bell because your Chalupa was insufficiently meaty. (Besides, it's debatable how much of Taco Bell's "meat" is actually meat in the first place.)

Okay -- one more taco-related item: Why the hell would anyone propose marriage with a cake made to look like a packet of Taco Bell hot sauce?

Professor Mark Post is being paid €300,000 to create a hamburger without using any meat from an animal. Instead, he's trying to grow meat in a lab using muscle stem cells. "We want to turn meat production from a farming process to a factory process," he says. Barf.

Dr. William Davis, the author of "Wheat Belly," summarizes his case against triticum aestivum, or modern wheat, on Boing Boing. "Wheat-consuming people are fatter than those who don't eat wheat," he concludes.

But is Davis overstating the case against wheat? Check out what Dr. Emily Deans has to say about "Wheat Belly," and also Chris Masterjohn's detailed review of Davis's book.

Tacos Made with Doritos Are Real But They're Not Real Food.

I was on the phone the other day with someone who lives near Fresno, California. "But I don't like to tell people I'm from Fresno," she said. "It's the armpit of California."

Really? Then how do you explain THIS:



That's right: Fresno's among the first towns in California where you can purchase Taco Bell's Taco Supremes made with "REAL" nacho-cheese-flavored Doritos.

Incidentally, isn't this one of the signs of the Apocalypse?

Made for the Munchies

First, it was chocolate and peanut butter. Then, it was frozen pizza 'n cookies. And Pringles and Smirnoff.

Now? Taco Bell's introducing "tacos" with crunchy shells made entirely of neon orange nacho cheese flavored Doritos.

Admittedly, my thirteen-year-old self would have been in heaven. If I close my eyes, I can almost see myself washing down a half-dozen of these suckers with a large Dr. Pepper and then smearing my spit-slickened orange-dusted fingers across the front of my Jimmy'z sweatshirt.

But then my adult self would have to slap that kid upside the head for eating such utter crap.



[Source]

Well, Duh.

As if we needed another reason to avoid fast food joints.

Much like Demi Moore's hips and before-and-after photos in supplement ads, fast food is the subject of a lot of fakery.

My favorite reality-vs.-advertising photo comparison: Taco Bell's Cantina tacos.

More here.

(Source: Alphaila)

Link Dump

Time for a big dump. Warning: I'm in a preachy mood.

Evidently, the U.S. and Canada are the two laziest countries on earth.

So get off the couch and look for ways to live longer and healthier.

Take advantage of every opportunity to exercise -- like during your daily commute.

But don’t waste your time doing sit-ups:

[A] Youngstown State University study, published in the October 2009 edition of the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, separated 71 men and women into three groups. The control group did no sit-ups. The other two groups performed three sets of 20 repetitions (30 seconds rest between sets) of three distinct abs exercises for 11 weeks. Group One performed the sit-ups three times a week on non-consecutive days and Group 2 trained the abs six days per week. The ab exercises increased in difficulty every four weeks and speed was regulated by a metronome.

The results surprised even the researchers. None of the three groups of exercisers demonstrated any strength gains. Nor did they reduce their waist circumference or percentage of body fat.

And try to eat better. Don’t eat so fast. By eating at a slower pace, you’ll feel fuller and reduce your caloric intake.

And while you’re at it, dine out less often. Restaurant fare can be deceptively unhealthy:

Salads, long touted as a virtuous choice, are a prime example. At IHOP, the grilled chicken Caesar salad has 1,210 calories, far more than the patty melt, which comes in at 750 calories. At Baja Fresh, a chicken tostada has 1,140 calories and 14 grams of saturated fat.

If you figure that the average person needs 2,000 calories a day, it's sobering to learn that more than half that amount can easily be consumed in a restaurant breakfast alone. And don't forget sodium. The recommended daily limit is 2,400 milligrams a day (1,500 milligrams for those who are middle-aged, are in certain ethnic groups or have conditions such as high blood pressure). Many restaurant dishes contain more than you should have in a whole day.

But you already know that, unless you're one of the few survey respondents who believe that Taco Bell helps people lose weight.

Lastly, when you’re feeling too tired to exercise, consider Aaron Heo’s regular fitness routine:

His typical workout lasts 3 1/2 hours. An hour, sometimes 90 minutes, is cardio work, a relentless regimen of 1,000-meter sprints at breakneck speed. The rest of the time is devoted to a lengthy warm-up, followed by stamina, strength and flexibility work. That can mean 1,000 to 2,000 squats per session, along with stretching, jogging and plyometrics. Then he strains against a canvas belt held by a bigger, stronger friend or coach: back and forth, over and over again.

He does this, on average, four days a week. Another two days a week, he trains on his own.

Aaron is 10 years old.

Bacon-Wrapped Sausage Stuffed with Taco Bell Cheesy Double Beef Burritos

I'm pretty sure this isn't on Taco Bell's Drive-Through Diet menu.

Source: Neatorama

Give Us This Day Our Daily Burrito Supreme

The New York Times is running a piece on fast food chains' attempts to market themselves as diet-friendly by touting their "healthier" offerings. As the article points out, the "lighter" fare on fast food menus are often still nutritionally disastrous in other ways, but there are nonetheless plenty of folks who want to lose weight without giving up their regular visits to Taco Bell and Dunkin' Donuts.

One such person is Christine Dougherty, who lost 54 pounds over a two-year period while ordering items off the "Fresco" menu at Taco Bell five to eight times per week. (She's now the spokesperson for Taco Bell's "Drive-Thru Diet" campaign.) Why was Dougherty so devoted to Taco Hell? “I don’t like to cook, and I wanted to be realistic without changing my lifestyle too much,” she says.

I've been a lifelong Taco Bell enthusiast, but seriously? If you're truly committed to getting healthy and turning your life around, then a drastic lifestyle change is exactly what's in order. You don't like cooking? Fine. Make yourself a salad or a sandwich. Eat an apple and some yogurt. Grab some almonds and cheese. You don't have to spend much time in the kitchen to eat well, or to eat cheaply. And I'm no diet Nazi; if you feel the occasional need to indulge or cheat, that's fine -- just make sure the food and/or the experience is worth it.

So unless you honestly believe that the chemically-formulated taste of ultra-processed fast food meals are worth the massive sodium intake, STOP EATING AT TACO BELL EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DAY.

Link Dump

There's a bunch of stuff on the web that I've been meaning to share, but I've been too lazy busy to do it. I doubt I'll get around to devoting a full post to each of the following links, so I might as well dump 'em here your reading/procrastinating pleasure:

1. 50 Ways to Cut 500 Calories a Day

My favorite is Number 34, mostly because I already do this (but also because my father-in-law once told my wife to tell me to cut it out):

Tap your foot. Your skinnier friends are probably fidgeters, who burn up to 350 calories a day just by tapping their feet or being restless. Try it for a few days. Walk around while you’re on the phone, or tap out a tune with your hands or feet (in the privacy of your own office, of course).

2. Watch "Supersize Me" For Free

FreeDocumentaries.org has a growing list of full-length documentaries for your viewing pleasure -- but nothing beats watching Morgan Spurlock gain 25 pounds and suffer liver damage after a month of ingesting McDonald's "food" exclusively.

3. Taco Bell's Drive-Thru Diet

Speaking of fast food, Taco Hell's marketing its "Fresco" menu to dieters who are determined to lose weight as long as they can still keep their daily appointment with a Burrito Supreme and a fistful of hot sauce packets. I love that Taco Bell's legal department forced them to put disclaimers on everything, pointing out that the "Drive-Thru Diet" isn't actually a diet. It's "not a weight loss program," Taco Bell confesses. Fresco products "are not a low calorie food," and the results achieved by its spokesmodel Christine "aren't typical." But it's catchy, and it worked for Subway! (Until Jared got fat again.)

4. Ad Age: What The Weight-Loss Biz Has In Store For 2010

I love the fact that Ad Age includes not just Nutrisystem, Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers in its round-up of "some of the bigger players" in the weight loss industry, but also Planters, Jell-O and Dunkin' Donuts. Why Dunkin' Donuts? Because it's going to make egg whites available in its breakfast sammitches (which, of course, you can wash down with a 630-calorie Chocolate Chip Muffin). And why Planters? Because like Jon Gosselin, Mr. Peanut's taking up yoga.

5. The New Age Cavemen and the City

Thanks to Boingboing and Yacine for pointing me in the direction of this article, which describes hipster paleo enthusiasts in New York City who eat "large quantities of meat and then fast[ ] between meals to approximate the lean times that his distant ancestors faced between hunts," and exercise by "scooting around the underbrush on all fours, leaping between boulders, [and] playing catch with stones." Why? "[T]o replicate how a prehistoric person might have fled from a mastodon," of course.

We went to a dinner party last night where we ate tons of meat from a variety of different animals -- all cooked over open flames in an outdoor wood-burning fireplace. Does that count?