'Tis The Season for Brown Candy Canes

Available on Amazon.com:

Mark my words: Next year, we'll be seeing Doritos Locos Tacos-flavored candy canes.

Home Depot Center: Y U No Serve Decent Food?

The consensus among just about everyone with whom I spoke at the CrossFit Games: The food options at the Home Depot Center were sorely lacking. If you looked hard, you could find the In-N-Out truck tucked away in the ass end of Tent City, and you could load up on the snacks sold by a couple of Paleo food booths (including Steve's Original, purveyors of my favorite Paleo crack in the world -- a.k.a. PaleoKrunch). The Wahoo's stand served up a special rice-free (though not bean-free) Protein Bowl that was pretty satisfying, too -- especially after I drowned it in hot sauce. But for the most part, the vendors at the stadium were hawking stuff that didn't appeal to this particular crowd of insanely fit, food-quality-obsessed people. (Seriously: CINNABON?)

My disappointment was exacerbated by the fact that I had dinner the night before the Games at my brother- and sister-in-law's place. 

Over the past couple of years, they've cultivated an amazing vegetable garden in their backyard; it's teeming with fresh produce: tomatoes, cabbage, potatoes, corn, lemon cucumbers, peppers, wine grapes, blueberries, watermelons -- you name it.

You think my wife's obsessed with food? My brother-in-law makes his own wine, brews his own beer, smokes and cures his own meats, and makes his own sausages. And my sister-in-law is a professional chef. (Now you know why I feel totally inadequate in the kitchen.)

To steal a page from Nom Nom Paleo's book, here's all the homemade, homegrown stuff I ate at their house:

A suggestion for next year's Games: Grilled meats and vegetables. They'll sell like hotcakes grilled meats and vegetables.

Now that I've gotten the food porn out of the way, I guess I'll start posting photos from the actual Games. Stay tuned -- same Bat time, same Bat channel.

Nurses: Pass on the Freebies

In the immediate wake of Star Wars Day and Cinco de Mayo, it may have escaped your notice that today was National Nurses Day. But don’t fret: National Nurses Week runs through May 12, so go celebrate by giving your favorite nurse a high five.

But once your excitement dies down a bit, stop for a moment to ponder the slings and arrows our nurses endure to help keep us healthy -- including irregular hours, night-shift work, physically and mentally draining responsibilities, and lack of sleep. (Two of our mighty 5 a.m. crew members are nurses, and I'm amazed at how they’re able to blast through CrossFit workouts before heading to the hospital for their shifts.)

All of this excess cortisol is taking its toll on the nursing profession as a whole. In May of 2008, the Journal of American Academy of Nurse Practitioners published a study of “the incidence of overweight and obesity in nursing professionals,” and found that 54 percent of the five thousand nurses surveyed were clinically obese or overweight. More than half of these nurses also stated that they “lack the motivation to make lifestyle changes” despite their excess weight.

Thankfully, Sprinkles Cupcakes, Dunkin’ Donuts and Cinnabon are here to save the day.

According to its Twitter feed, Sprinkles handed out free cupcakes to nurses today.

On Monday, Dunkin’ Donuts is delivering thousands of free donuts to hospitals AND giving away sweet, sweet beverages to nurses.

Cinnabon’s even more generous, offering free sugar bombs to our nation’s nurses all week long.

Did you notice that only purveyors of sugary, grain-based desserts are "celebrating" Nurses Week by giving away their products to nursing professionals? Is it just a coincidence that the manufacturers of the #1 source of calories in the Standard American Diet are trying to shovel their evil concoctions into the mouths of our health professionals?

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I suspect that these junk food peddlers know exactly what they're doing. It's no accident that they've decided to target an industry full of people whose high stress levels have triggered insatiable sugar cravings: They know full well that  nurses are particularly susceptible to sugar binges due to their elevated cortisol levels. And so these companies have decided to leverage Nurses Week as an excuse to distribute free samples and get more folks hooked on their dietary crack.

Well played, sugar-pushers. Well played.

[Previously: Cupcakes are Evil]

Sugary Things to Avoid This Weekend

It's April 15! Go ahead and celebrate finishing your taxes -- but do your best to steer clear of the following:

South Korean Ice Cream - because it'll make you think you can breakdance.



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Carved Bananas - because they're the stuff of nightmares.

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Cookie-Stuffed Cookies - because it all ends up in the same place: Your butt.

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Oversized Donuts - because just looking at them will give you diabetes.



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Free Cinnabon (on April 18) - because you know better.

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Monster Volcano Wedding Cake - because it'll look pretty much the same when it exits your body.

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Stay strong.