Meat Cupcakes

As much as I enjoy eating animals, a cupcake made of meat holds no appeal for me.

As Ian Chillag of NPR put it:  "That'd be a really good dessert for your kid's surprise party, if you didn't like your kid."

[Source]

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]

Cupcake-Flavored Vodka

Oh, fer cryin' out loud. Wasn't Pringles 'n Smirnoff bad enough?

There are four available flavors, by the way: "Original," "Chiffon," "Devil's Food" and "Frosting." That's right: FROSTING.

[Source]

Sugar Rage

Some people steal cookies and call themselves "the Cookie Monster" when they're caught with crumbs all over their mouths. Others shoplift Weight Watchers desserts or trash cupcake shops that run out of "sweet tooth fairy cakes." And then there are those who fly into a rage when no one'll share their imitation maple syrup.

Ah, sugar.

And don't be all smirky if you're sitting there with a glass of juice and an agave-flavored bowl of whatever it is you're eating. You're just as likely to throw what the Whole9 folks call a "sugar tantrum."

Cupcakes from Hell

Because who hasn't wanted to deep-fry a cupcake?

As you know, I think cupcakes are a special kind of evil. Plus, not a single ingredient in deep-fried cupcakes qualifies as paleo-friendly.

But part of me still wants a bite of this.

This Too Shall (Hopefully) Pass

In case you haven’t been keeping track, it’s now been over ten years since the airing of the “Sex & the City” episode that kicked off the gourmet cupcake craze. And in that time, gussied-up cupcakes have sprung up everywhere across this country like bedbugs and mold. Throw a rock in any direction and it’s likely to hit a cupcake cookbook, blog, television show, costume or toy. Or, with any luck, one of these rolling, limbless cupcake people:

Don't get me wrong: I'm not immune to the saccharine charms of a good cupake. I’ll confess to having visited cupcakeries from coast to coast, from Magnolia Bakery in New York and Sugar Mama's in Alaska to Sprinkles and Kara’s in California. We occasionally pick up a box or three of cupcakes for parties, and we’ve been known to custom-order vast quantities of Star Wars-themed cupcakes for our kids' birthdays.

But come on, people: It’s 2010. Cupcake fetishism is so, so tired. Can we please move along to the next food-related fad? Something a little less crappy for you?

Case in point: Here’s the nutritional breakdown of just one red velvet cupcake from Sprinkles (which is fairly representative of most gourmet cupcakes):

• Calories: 497
• Calories from Fat: 241
• Total Fat: 26.8g
• Saturated Fat: 16g
• Cholesterol: 104mg
• Sodium: 412mg
• Total Carbohydrate: 61.5g
• Dietary Fiber: 1g
• Sugars: 45g
• Protein: 6g 

Exercise can't compensate for a bad diet, but even if it could, you’d have to run a 10K to burn off just this one cupcake. And you’d still have to contend with the tidal wave of insulin released in response to the massive sugar intake, which is going to nicely plump up the adipose fat cells in your hips, arms, ass and jellyroll with triglycerides. Plus, all that running’s made you even hungrier, so you’re unlikely to stop at just one cupcake.

But hey: At least you’re only sucking down cupcakes on rare, super-special occasions like birthdays and anniversaries, right?

Wrong.

Paleo poster child John Durant recently penned a post entitled “Why Gourmet Cupcakes are Evil,” which made the point that up-market cupcakes are insidious because they give sugar addicts an excuse to indulge on a regular basis. While “[n]ice cakes are too big, too expensive, too luxurious” for everyday snacking, those cute, innocent-looking little cupcakes aren’t. And yet they’re sufficiently fancy, nostalgia-inducing and affordable to make cupcake enthusiasts feel like they’re getting a special treat -- even if they’re helping themselves to another frosting-slathered gut bomb every other day.

Unless you're hoping for pre-diabetes, cupcakes shouldn't be a staple of your diet. Strip away the sprinkles, paper liner and cutesy hype, and all you're left with is plain, old, not-very-special cake. Besides, much like heroin, cupcakes are so passé. Even the tacky Sex & the City tour bus has dropped Magnolia from its route. So put down that box of cupcakes, and back away slowly.