Gluttony is a sin and, despite decades of post-industrial decay, there remains a sufficient residue of shame-based moral foundationalism to inspire at least symbolic (and, importantly, visible) expiatory sacrifice (cf. hedonists and grade-grubbing college applicants alike "giving back" to charity/the public good by something something)?
What is the point, really, of reduced-fat potato chips?
I am reading this post as a tribute to the late Andy Rooney.
Not choosing the healthiest option isn't the same thing as ignoring health aspects altogether. Nothing wrong with reasonable tradeoffs.
Of course one might question whether reduced fat chips actually have any health benefits.
whether reduced fat chips actually have any health benefits
The act of mixing the French Onion dip (featuring light sour cream, of course) no doubt burns calories.
2: Late? Crap, I hadn't heard. That poor guy was barely into retirement.
I feel this way about diet soda. Diet soda is gross.
Reduced fat Cape Cod Potato Chips are flash baked first and taste delicious. And I enjoy eating them more, since they don't leave piles of grease on your fingers. You can't tell the difference otherwise.
parodie, I will hold on to my diet coke until my dying day.
Diet soda is the sweet nectar of the gods.
Cherry Coke Zero is a godsend. I find regular pop way too sweet.
Non-diet soda, on the other hand, is gross.
I think that chips with less fat because they are baked is a fine thing. Less fat because of chemically stuff seems wrong and loose-stool-inducing.
You seem to be saying that the very act of choosing to eat potato chips in the abstract means making an unambiguously unhealthy choice, or put more simply, there is no middle ground between gluttony and continence. That's kind of ridiculous. I have no idea whether low-fat potato chips are in reality any more healthful than regular; but you can, for example, choose to eat ten chips rather than a whole bag, and that's no less "surrendering to a bit of gluttony" than eating ice cream after dinner. Moderation in all things!
Also, if there were no middle ground between gluttony and continence, I'd never have lost any weight at all.
13: I'm inclined to wave my hands vaguely in the direction of low-fat whatevers being pathetic, whereas limiting oneself to a reasonable amount of something non-low-fat is laudably stoic. (For the expansive definition of stoicism that involves eating the occasional Pringle.)
Kettle Sea Salt & Black Pepper chips are the best type of potato chips. These do not come in a low-fat formulation, ergo, low-fat potato chips are deprecated.
Or just Contony I suppose. "The middle ground between gluttony and continence" would probably be Olestra.
The housing crunch would have been way more delicious without a margarine call.
Did this get linked yet: http://thehairpin.com/2011/11/women-struggling-to-drink-water
Somewhat more suggestive than the laughing-alone-with-salad photo set.
you can, for example, choose to eat ten chips rather than a whole bag
Hahahahahahahaha! Sure you can.
18: The middle ground between ingestions of Olestra is slippery.
22: I have. Not that often admittedly.
I could eat 10 chips if chips came in a 10-chip bag. Not otherwise. Also if it was the last bag in the store.
I'm curious to what extent the notion that you can't stop eating chips predates the various advertising campaigns to that effect. Probably at least somewhat, but I bet it was then amplified.
Kettle Sea Salt & Black Pepper chips are the best type of potato chips.
Those things are evil. They're the only kind of chip where I really can't stop myself from just eating half a bag all at once. I try not to buy them but sometimes I can't resist.
26: I don't think it was the result of advertising, in my case; I am just incapable of moderation when it comes to salty snack foods. I had to stop eating them altogether, which wasn't that hard, really.
Do not eat them that much but go for the low-salt variety not the low-fat. Many, many snacks being too salty are a win for me attempts to not eat like a total idiot. However, the existence of Herr's Russet Kettle Cooked Potato Chips don't help one bit.
I loved Poore Brothers Habanero potato chips -- the habanero flavor, while delicious, was hot enough that you did not want to eat the entire bag in one sitting.
26: A lot of public health advocates, including David Kessler, have emphasized the way that eating potato chips has a similar reward structure to crack cocaine. Each chip is a instant lift that goes away quickly, leaving you with no way to get back to the state you just had other than eating another chip. Also, the quick burst of energy comes with audible and tactile ques which reinforce the reward structure.
19: The housing crunch would have been way more delicious without a margarine call.
Until 1967 it was illegal to buy dyed margarine ... in Wisconsin. (And a lot of other places in the years before that.)
The film Butter is playing here this weekend.
(As is a movie about the infamous Nietzsche horse.)
Speaking of movies and food, went to see Toast recently and it turned out to be an odd little film to which my wife and I had quite different reactions. I assume the hideous food stuff at the beginning was nostalgic for Brits of a certain age.
34: And now you just can't find the undyed stuff.
33: I guess I'd better stay away from crack after all.
Ever have some random association bouncing around your head and you can't figure out why? For some reason the name "Earl of Shaftesbury" keeps coming to mind and I can't imagine why, since I know almost nothing about him, although it does sort of sound like he should have been a 17th-century porn star.
40: Don't know, but the Shaftesburys seem to have had an interesting run of it lately. The 10th Earl was murdered by his brother-in-law in 2004--his body was found in a remote ravine in the foothills of the French Alps a few months letter. His wife was also convicted of the crime. Shortly thereafter the relatively young 11th Earl died of a heart attack while visiting his younger brother (now the 12th Earl) who was a DJ (Nick AC) in the techno music scene in New York. The 12th has married and is back in England and seems to be intent on restoring the family estate.
Speaking of food, NMM to crappy ice cream.
VA Republican candidate thinks we don't give enough thanks to Red Army veterans.
A subtle point! And likely true!
I was beat up on FB for saying it was overpriced and tasted more or less the same as regular ice cream. Folks are nostalgic for it being in tiny spheres and "sticking to the tongue", apparently.
I've never eaten a Dippin' Dot. Are you all 10 years younger than I am?
I'm told it was a common sight at zoos, amusement parks, etc. for people now 24-30.
I'm not sure I can remember ever eating Dippin' Dots, but I have a fuzzy and possibly incorrect memory of them being sold somewhere touristy--Cape Kennedy? The Air & Space Museum?--and billed as "the ice cream that astronauts eat," or something like that.
Are you all 10 years younger than I am?
Twelve, I think.
48: It's "the ice cream of the future." You may have been mixing it up with freeze-dried ice cream?
Pittsburgh Zoo had them this summer. The cookies and cream flavor wasn't horrible, but still not as good a regular ice cream. The other flavor, some kind of fruit, was inedible.
50: Probably.
49 has me wondering: is there any younger cohort of Unfoggeders? Are we rapidly reaching a point where there will be no twenty-somethings here?
I learned what Dippin' Dots are today from the Wall Street Journal.
God, I really am become old.
teo's younger, I guess, but not by a lot. Should we be recruiting? Who's going to be paying in when everyone here retires from commenting?
52.2: We still have L. (at least occasionally). Not sure who else, though.
Do we need some kind of Joe Camel equivalent to appeal to the kidz?
33: That's this week's medical wisdom/bullshit. Flip a coin to make the choice.
Do we need some kind of Joe Camel equivalent to appeal to the kids?
Alternatively, we could cultivate our long history of turning relatively innocent matters into grist for threads about dating, food and tolerating bob because he makes us feel guilty about not living up to the notionally revolutionary rhetoric of our theory-laden undergraduate educations and market Unfogged as some sort of heritage brand. Kids like heritage stuff, right? Hence all the handlebar mustaches and sleeve garters at molecular mixology thingies? Artisanal commenting?
I had DD years ago, at Camden Yards, I think.
We should make blog-themed pogs. Kidz are into those, right?
Pokemons should enter into this, right?
33: Isn't that true of any small thing of which one eats more than one? Yum, that Skittle was good! How can I continue this lovely experience? I can . . . eat another Skittle!
59: Or we could have a live action blog booth at Maker Faire. Where we all sit around and bullshit with each other in person.
I think the P'burgh Zoo and Kennywood are the places I recall my kids asking for it--so probably mid 90s. Invented in 1987 according to Wikipedia.
64: Or occasionally meet at bars near where commenters live.
64, 66: Dress up like your favorite Opinionated... commenter!
Per 62, dibs on Opinionated Ash Ketchum.
Ash Ketchum
... who? I guess Flippanter should be our ambassador to the young.
I hear they're into sparkly vampires or some such nonsense too.
I guess Flippanter should be our ambassador to the young immature.
I think Flippanter is older than you are, essear. I have no idea why I think this but Flippanter = 5 years younger than me, and essear = 10 years younger. I'm like a Den Mother!
I don't think I ever got a sense of L. as a persona I remember. Maybe I wasn't reading at the right time. Or maybe I need at least two letters in a pseud to start attaching personalities to.
essear = 10 years younger
Close enough.
My cholesterol is very low, thank you.
My cholesterol is high but this thread made me buy chips and make dip.
I had DD years ago, at Camden Yards, I think.
Skimming the thread it took me a minute to realize that "DD" was different from "dsquared".
I'm a twenty-something but I just lurk.
I thought about adding something about "and listen to stories told by thirty-somethings and rue my future" but that seemed a bit much.
I think there was a Shaftesbury who wrote about the plague in England. Maybe not an earl.
33: I think there was a claim that the effect is stronger when you are dealing with a salty-fatty energy boost than a sugar boost.
In any case, the claim is much more like an argument by analogy deployed in a political debate than empirical confirmation of a theory in medical science.
I asked in a recent thread if there were any regulars younger than me these days and there didn't appear to be.
I'll be twenty-something for a few more weeks.
The end of Daylight Savings will give you an extra hour of your twenties.
Then, lying about it will buy me another year or two.
I had Dippin' Dots one time! I forget where and when. I think I must have been with a friend's family, because no way would I or my parents shell out $6 for an ice cream. I enjoyed the tongue-sticking effect.
Also, Kettle Chips are good, but my favorite are Zapp's Spicy Cajun Craw-taters. I don't think they're widely available outside of Louisiana, though. A giant box of them is a regular Christmas/birthday gift from a good friend, so I have managed to sustain the habit past my days of living in New Orleans.
And I'm glad I'm the only youngster around because I feel that gives me the privilege to leave boring, poorly written and comments. You can't fire me without dropping below quota! Or something.
Wait, is L. a name change? I'm coming around to LB's position on this in my dotage.
40: I swear there's some historical fiction I've read where one of the first few E's of S.bury was a major villain. I was thinking it might have been The Devil in Velvet but maybe not, as he is not mentioned in the Wikipedia.
I always figure everyone is either 4 years older than me or 4 years younger. At least in terms of regular commenters, this only seems to have a few exceptions.
Speaking of fiction and the obscure, has anyone else (ever) read Anthony Burgess's 1985? It's so awful and stupid. I think it might be one of the things that got me to really despise "libertarians", as prior to reading it I had merely dismissed them as harmless eccentric dupes.
L. commented briefly before you ever showed up -- in her senior year of high school, she asked about deciding between colleges. Then she went to Tulane and Katrina hit immediately.
97: The hurricane-inducing charge never stuck because of good legal representation.
Then she went to Tulane and Katrina hit immediately.
This happened to a student of mine, which is how he ended up being my student.
|| This is kind of interesting.|>
For the past couple years, the Dippin Dots at Camden Yards have been replaced by an imitation Dippin Dots product made by Carvel, which is even worst than the original. Probably the worst food product in the entire stadium.
I was at Busch Stadium last summer, and so far, that's the only real challenger to Camden Yards I've seen for stadium quality. Is there anyone who would like to opine that there is a superior U.S. ballpark to Camden Yards?
102: Did we look at that before? It seems familiar, but with more detail. Hmm.
Anyhow, yeah, I think the numbers are pretty accurate, although housing is a little iffy. Especially with the rental market so tight right now, I would bump up the housing numbers by $150 or so across the board here in Hennepin Cty. Transportation is really high, of course, because they seem to be assuming 1 car per adult. And, obviously, the health care number could vary hugely depending on people's specific circumstances wrt job, benefits, pre-existing conditions etc.
Is there anyone who would like to opine that there is a superior U.S. ballpark to Camden Yards?
Ahem.
Kettle Sea Salt & Black Pepper chips are the best type of potato chips.
Exactly right.
These do not come in a low-fat formulation, ergo, low-fat potato chips are deprecated.
Given that I can demolish a bag in short order, I'd like to claim that I'm choosing the lower-fat variety for the sake of my cholesterol. In fact it is vanity, as the full-fat version makes my skin feel uncomfortably greasy.
I recently (as in like five minutes ago) tried "red wine vinegar" flavored potato chips. They're okay, but they're surprisingly sweet and don't really taste anything like vinegar. Looking at the ingredients I see that sugar ranks well above any kind of vinegar, which seems about right.
Crisps (i.e. potato chips) are one of those foods where the classic non-organic/non-artisanal/non-poncy form is better. Bog-standard Walker's/Golden Wonder type crisps are thin, light and non-greasy. Kettle and the like are over-thick over-cooked crunchy slabs of oil saturated fail.
Last time I looked this up, traditional (Walkers style) crisps were about 20% fat (i.e. equivalent to regarding every fifth crisp as a lump of grease), whereas Kettle chips were about 25% fat (every fourth crisp is a lump of grease). The difference is significant, but they're both too far over the top for me to care, really.
160: Fenway? Please. Somebody built a wall in the middle of the outfield.
The new Yankee stadium is pretty nice. Not nice in the Camden Yards sense, but nice in the way that the Death Star represents a remarkable feat of engineering.
It should be nice, they spent a billion dollars on it.
The best potato chips are cooked in lard. Seriously.
Don't buy chips cooked frivolously.
106, 111: No one ever thinks about me.
I like the Yards, a lot. I don't know the exact stat, but I think I've sat closer to the plate in Fenway than you can get at the Yards. Felt like it, anyway. The social aspect is pretty different: in the Yards, like nearly everywhere else, the management is constantly cheerleading over the PA. Games in Fenway have featured way less (maybe none) of this.
I think the Phillies park is pretty nice. Maybe I'll catch a game at Safeco next summer.
For football, I've got a sentimental attachment to the stadium at Cal, but really, in terms of the experience, it's hard to beat Washington Grizzly.
[toots non-pre-recorded organ sadly . . . slowly hand turns scoreboard . . .]
I wouldn't complain if someone hired me for a case that required me to travel to Chicago during one of the interleague weeks.
Relatively speaking, and ignoring the quality of play offered by the home team, PNC Park is quite well done*. I've not been to Camden Yards to compare, however.
*Particularly in contrast to the atrocity that is Heinz Field. They knocked down a great football/terrible baseball dual-purpose stadium and put up the opposites despite the relative on-field competence of the respective teams.
I'm 30. I could recruit my students to lurk/occasionally make pointless comments along with me!
in the Yards, like nearly everywhere else, the management is constantly cheerleading over the PA.
This is a huge problem. And its absense was one of my favorite things about Wrigley when I went there. Then the next day, I went to a White Sox game at US Cellular field; the overwhelming onslaught of digital gimmickry was beyond awful.
120: Where I've really noticed this is at NBA games (although maybe only Boston--the only place I've been to any in the last 10 years). Terrible, awful crap. As if they had no confidence in the game itself being compelling (despite having had very good teams).
I'm always dismayed by the state of USian cheering. I assume it's been crippled relative to Europe by central planning.
107: Huh, I have never seen those offered for sale.
I take the black pepper kettle chips, spread them out on a large plate, grind extra black pepper on them, and grate extra-sharp cheddar onto them. Then I microwave them until the cheese melts and eat while still warm.
This roughly triples their deliciousness at the cost of only doubling their unhealthyness! Win!
25: Indeed. I've eaten just 10 chips before, but only when some other person has for some reason left only 10 chips in the bag and there are no other bags of chips in the house.
This happens a fair amount though. So my guess it that either my wife or the Ambien Walrus feels guilty about finishing off a bag.
Can I say "I don't even eat potato chips"? Or is that like not owning a television?
Can I say "I don't even eat potato chips"? Or is that like not owning a television?
Saying it twice in a row won't make it a cliche any sooner.
My dad recently wrote to the Kettle Chips people:
"Hi,
It is my sincere opinion that Kettle Chips are the best crisps that I ever eat.
My favorite way of eating Kettle Chips is with a tube of Primula cheese. I find that one tube of Primula is just about the right amount for one bag of Kettle Chips.
Recipe:
* Empty a bag of Kettle Chips into a large glass bowl.
* Open a tube of Primula.
* Settle down on the sofa with a good DVD. (Making sure that any other people watching the DVD with you have been provided with their own supply of Kettle Chips and Primula.)
* Watch the first 5 minutes of the DVD without attempting to eat anything. (Often some important plot element is explained near the beginning of a DVD, and you really do not want to glance away from the screen at all.)
* As you watch the DVD sometimes you will be able to look away from the screen for a few seconds. At each such opportunity, squeeze some Primula onto a Kettle Chip and eat it."
Cheese in a tube sounds like one of those stereotypically disgusting British foods. But I'm not overly fond of cheese in general.
131. You haven't come across asilon's dad stories before, have you?
re: 131
That's odd, because I think of cheese in a tube as a sort of American thing. Primula is British, but it falls into the family of 'quasi-American foods' in my head.
Yeah, cheese in a tube definitely seems like a crazy foreign idea! British cheese is Good Proper Food.
I googled, and it turns out it's Norwegian, so there you go. The parent company gives a lot of money to various humanitarian causes.
132 - ha, there are a lot of them. People look at me and comment on how I turned out so boringnormal.
Yeah, I think ttaM's mixing it up with Philly, which is American (Kraft). An abomination considered on its own but I believe that clever chefs who want to write for the Graun etc. use it in stuff to prove how contrarian they are. I expect they use Primula too.
re: 135
Yeah, I'm probably lumping all cheese-abominations together.
135? Philly? an abomination? Are you thinking of Velveeta? If not, what do you put on your bagels?
135: are you both confusing it with Cheese Wiz? Surely you're not thinking cream cheese? That's not our lookout--originated in England, anyhow.
re: 138
Most of what I think of as 'cream' cheeses are lumpy, and also, to my taste, an abomination. Also, I don't like ricotta, or mascarpone, while we are talking of historically approved bland fat-delivery methods.
what do you put on your bagels?
Cream cheese? I think Philly probably counts technically as cream cheese, but it comes pre-wrapped and that. Should be fresh. In its absence I'd pass on the bagels, unless they're exceptional. Nothing on earth rescues a mediocre bagel.
I don't think I've ever seen cheese in a tube in America? Cheese Whiz comes in a jar and Velveeta comes in a block.
Yeah, I'm probably lumping all cheese-abominations together.
If you're going to do that, you'll need a recipe.
I don't think I've ever seen cheese in a tube in America?
Easy Cheese doesn't come in a tube, but its packaging is earlier similar to the non-tube toothpaste containers one finds.
Some mustards come in toothpaste-like tubes. I do not approve of this.
There's good tomato paste that comes in a tube. I'm pro-tube. More foods should come in tubes. Mmmmm, tube lobster!
Tube chicken! Tube ham! Tube brisket! Tube lamb!
146: I was just thinking that!' The best/fanciest kind!
Tube burgers! Tube short rib! Tube roast!
147: Who will chime in with the obvious missing component . . .
Actually, 151 was before I saw 150.
I am now overwhelmed with nostalgia for Velveeta cheese, which my grandmother used to serve at children's tea parties when I was five or six.
In time, all things are made explicit.
I think vegans can have implicit steak.
Someone should start a foodie social networking site and call it tubr.
The fit2fat2fit guy has entered the cutting phase. Something called 'Whole Body Green' features quite heavily in his daily meal plans. Sounds disgusting, and I wonder if he doesn't have a disclosure or two to make. Generally, the meals look really dull. Sensible, in an ultra-low-carb sort of way, but where's the enjoyment? And where does the booze fit in?
ttaM: But ricotta is delicious! Would you allow a mozzarella at least?
re: 160
Yeah, mozzarella is quite nice sometimes. I don't even really mind mascarpone if the recipe is right. A lot of my cheese-dislikes are just personal taste. Ironically, given my body-fat levels, I'm not a big lover of obviously fatty foods,* and a lot of the softer or less strong flavoured cheeses -- unless the recipe is a really good one -- just feel like I'm ingesting flavourless fat. I'd rather have a proper blue cheese, or decent quality cheddar if I'm eating cheese. Or some pecorino or parmesan.
* not for diet reasons, just in terms of taste. I don't like things like avocado either, for the same reason.
161:
Tube mole: that would be better branded as Men's Tube, I think. Vide:
Regular Pocky: Pocky
Dark chocolate Pocky: Men's Pocky.
I just had bacon-peanut butter cookies that a student baked for a bake sale. They were fine but I wasn't sure that the bacon really provided anything special, besides the gimmick-value.
Bacon-peanut butter sandwiches on toast are awesome, but I'm not sure it'd work in a cookie.
Bacon and peanut butter? Sick and wrong.
I think ttaM's mixing it up with Philly, which is American (Kraft). An abomination considered on its own
I wonder what formulation of Philly cheese you guys get. The one they sell in Germany is far superior to the one in the U.S.-- light and easily spreadable, not gloppy and thick.
166: Everything you've ever said about the possibility of food being too rich or too fatty is crazy moon language to me. I would spread duck fat on bread and eat it. I would butter an avocado. (I admit, I never actually have buttered an avocado, but if I thought of a reason to, I would.)
Bacon and peanut butter is sweet/salty/crisp/meaty/fatty. There is no better food.
I must admit I like the idea of bacon and pb, but not in a cookie.
168: I have battered and deep fried avocado.
170. I've never seen an avocado ripe enough to eat that hung around long enough to make the batter.
I used to work at a restaurant where one of the cooks was fond of halving an avocado, removing the pit, filling the little reservoir with soy space, and cupping the half avocado/soy sauce pool in one hand, as he used the other hand to eat it with a spoon. I suppose melted butter would've worked, too.
172. Sounds about right. I use Worcestershire, but gusty bus.
re: 168
Yeah, my wife is a bit like that. Perhaps not quite that bad, but she likes things like avocado and various cheese-foods that I would reject in favour of some lean meat, and a carrot. I have a bit of a sweet tooth, but my intake of fatty foods is low. Not zero, I like a bacon sandwich or the occasional burger as much as the next person, but whenever I've closely tracked my intake of saturated fats, it's very low.
Clearly, that's where your dieting problems go back to. Not enough lard. Step up the amount of suet in your diet and watch the pounds fall away.
This is going to start working for me any day now.
Shorter 176.1: Atkins was a pussy.
Deep fried butter. That delicious smooth unsalted French style butter, perhaps. Well chilled before frying. It's soda that makes you fat anyway.
Ironically, given my body-fat levels, I'm not a big lover of obviously fatty foods,* and a lot of the softer or less strong flavoured cheeses -- unless the recipe is a really good one -- just feel like I'm ingesting flavourless fat.
Is there a specific word for an irony that's not ironic at all? Because your body fat level has almost literally nothing to do with ingestion of "fatty" foods.
re: 179
Funnily enough, I do know this.* But people assume, to look at me, that I'm hoovering up pies, and deep fried stuff.
* I'm about as well-read on the topic of diet as any Atkins/paleo/fad nutter.**
** and have taken on board some of that, and also don't eat much bread or refined grains. I'm just not 'full-nutter'.
Cavemen were known to track entire herds of potato chips for weeks at a time, often even chasing them through delicious rivers of barbecue flavor powder prior to the kill.
181 -- oh good. I've sort of become a parody of myself at this point on this topic, but it's true that tons of people -- including me, until recently, and millions of others -- are taken in by the bullshit dietary fat=body fat connection, and buy nonsense "low fat" products in what amounts to a billion dollar scam.
One would think, as it's the perfect medium, that the Interrupting Cow would be on Twitter, and yet.
159: That WBG stuff sounds like you'd get the same effect with grass-and-roadkill smoothies, but with a slightly better taste.
Not enough lard. Step up the amount of suet in your diet
Lard and suet are different things, LB.
And the no-true Scotsman in question is short on both. Honestly, ttaM, shouldn't you be deepfrying whiskey or something?
Or at least subsisting entirely on chip butties.
Whoops, that should be deepfrying whisky.
Bacon and peanut butter? Sick and wrong.
I don't want to be right, Scotty.
re: 184
Yeah. I don't really buy absolutely all of the low-carb/paleo type stuff -- there's an undercurrent of 'man make fire, man kill mighty beast, man not eat food with lady-cooties' about it -- but the diet food industry, and the low-fat thing are clearly bollocks. The one that always amuses me is that a particular brand of healthy diet breakfast cereal has higher sugar levels, and more calories, than the standard non-diet brand. As it happens I feel better eating less bread, and I eat less overall if I have a breakfast with loads of protein and a bit of fat, so to that extent I'm down with the paleo-types. But I like and eat [and will continue to eat] lots of non-paleo approved foods.
No chip butties, but I could really go a morning roll, with a Lorne sausage, fried egg, and tattie scone, right about now.
Just looked it up. A tattie scone is essentially a baked gnocci?
re: 194
It's like a flat potato pancake/bread thing. Designed to mate profitably with meat-based foodstuffs and bread.
1) If I'm in California or somewhere else with really good, fresh, Haas avocados, it's avocados on the half-shell for me! A little lemon juice, salt and pepper, and a spoon. God, I can eat two whole avocados in under ten minutes that way.
2) The new taco place next to me sells a battered and fried avocado with jalapenos and sausage taco. It is delicious and I crave it all the time. This may become a problem.
A little lemon juice, salt and pepper, and a spoon.
Avocados, like eggs, are made to be eaten with tons of salt. Sprinkle on kosher salt, eat a layer, reapply salt.
This is true. I like less salt on things than most people, so there's a lot of things I won't salt at all, but an avocado needs it badly.
This, on the other hand, really is a food you should probably avoid if you want to lose weight.
God, I can eat two whole avocados in under ten minutes that way.
That's not that fast. There's guys who can eat 60 hot dogs in a five minutes.
||
Goddamn, I hate this stupid stats class.
|>
There's guys who can eat 60 hot dogs in a five minutes.
But they only really taste numbers 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34 and 55.
202: what do you guys have against soy?
I think they're anti legume generally. Tree nuts I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure California cavemen don't eat peas/beans/peanuts/soy.
205: Ah, the rare Fibonoshi sequence synaesthesia.
Wait, paleo people don't eat legumes? What the hell dumbass cavemen are you trying to emulate?
Or, rather, limiting lectin intake is a good move.
Wait, you have to wear those terrible feet shoes if you're going to live primally in the modern world?!
Here's some more on legumes, from a moderately less insane website.
I'm going to start linking to loopy pro-vegan websites just to counteract Halford's loopy websites.
I guess I should withhold comment on 212 until I've looked at 215.
I mean, the whole glycemic index thing is basically pseudoscience, if we're being honest, and the less insane of those websites treats it as obvious, unassailable fact.
In the section about soaking, sprouting, and fermenting as traditional ways to cut down on lectins, the guy on that first website says
Going old school on your favorite nut varieties, for example, cuts those lectin levels dramatically.
What does that mean? What are examples of nuts so treated?
216: Which will also, of course, be talking about "imbalance of gut bacteria" and "systemic inflammation".
the whole glycemic index thing is basically pseudoscience
Whoa. Not all of it, not if you have diabetes.
I thought that the only-sprouted-seeds people were religious fanatics. No?
(I should say, there is in fact a lot of evidence that low carb/low glycemic index diets work pretty well as far as these things go and are pretty good for you. But the actual mechanisms seem pretty poorly understood.)
221: yeah, sorry, I meant the mechanisms proposed for contribution to weight gain/hunger in the various popular books on the subject.
222: Aren't sprouted seeds crucial for beer making?
Yup, that's part of malting. Malted grain is sprouted and then lightly roasted.
Googling around, there also appear to be some well-cited papers that found benefits to the paleo diet over control, which doesn't surprise me on an intuitive level, anyhow.
Which is to say, Halford should definitely keep to his diet, as he likes it and it apparently works for him, even if the wacky-ass just-so stories for why that diet might work have no apparent basis in fat.
They probably have a basis in Lacan if anything l*an.
Soybeans (raw ones) contain enzyme inhibitors, isoflavones, and lectin. So do tomatoes and potatoes, as well as many other fruits. Cooking them cuts down on the activity hugely. Raw, they induce problems in the pancreas of some organisms (the inbred rats that get used for pharmaceutical assays, apparently chickens also); cooked, not. Here's one review article: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11312815
Needing to eat proteins is a challenge for the human digestive tract. Breaking them down as much as possible with heat and digestive enzymes is the way to go.
What amount to trace activities of proteins in food is so far down on the list of rational concerns about diet and environment, I don't know how to express it clearly. This is thousands-fold less cause for concern than harmful pathogens in food.
The research is interesting because there's a lot of variation in how digestion and metabolism work between mammals, and also between individual humans. But in looking at research articles about some aspect of metabolism, keep the big picture in mind.
Going to eat an avocado off the half shell now.
Thanks, lw.
Re: 212, this was confusing:
Take up old traditions like soaking, sprouting and using bacterial fermentation techniques for any moderate/high lectin foods like beans you choose to keep in your diet. Fermentation methods are especially effective, virtually eliminating lectins in one study of lentils. All those kitchen rituals you remember from Grandma? They're adaptive, essentially pre-digestive techniques practiced by traditional cultures around the globe. Going old school on your favorite nut varieties, for example, cuts those lectin levels dramatically.
Well, okay: soy sauce is fermented. Anyone who doesn't soak her or his beans is doing something wrong (this leaves aside nuts). Is this nutrition under the assumption that you don't know what you're doing, such that soaking beans is an "old tradition" that barely anyone remembers, and is so super hard that if we can't manage it, we'd better not eat beans?
Generally, sure, sprouting is recommended for all sorts of reasons.
The nuts part was what confused me. Traditionally boiled peanuts, I guess? (I have had boiled peanuts only once, and they did not impress me.)
I guess there's nut milk -- ground nuts soaked in hot water? Would that be cave-approved?
(I have had boiled peanuts only once, and they did not impress me.)
These are fighting words where I'm from.
234: Yeah, not sure about the nuts. Maybe he was using "nuts" to mean legumes in general? I wondered about boiled peanuts.
The whole thing is not completely foolish, but the conclusion Halford wanted to take from it (soy sauce is bad for you, legumes are bad for you) is notably uncalled for.
I think whether or not nut milk is cave-approved would depend on freely given consent.
I think the somewhat more sane answer is that legumes aren't a great way of getting your protein and not a great weight loss choice, not that they're the devil food. And in a world that's trying to get soy and corn into everything you eat, that's worth knowing.
My actual views are basically 227, but the just so stories are so much fun. Particularly those of my gym owner. Babies drink milk. Do you want to be weak like a baby? No. So don't drink milk.
Babies triple their muscle in a year! Do you want to triple your muscle in a year?
Nuts aren't legumes, except for peanuts.
Cats eat bugs and have fantastic limberness and balance. Do you want to be fantastically limber and balanced?
242: I would pretty much guarantee that Halford's gym owner is pro-bug-eating.
241: Right, so I don't know what the quoted portion is talking about -- just speaking loosely, I guess, about things with lectins. Of the bean variety.
Milk wouldn't be cave-approved, since lactose tolerance in adult humans postdates building shelter and tending herd animals.
The whole premise of a diet derived from preagricultural ancestors who died at 30 is fucked.
Food isn't medicine, thinking of it that way is a mistake. The problem facing humanity until very recently has been getting enough to eat.
That said, fructose and sucrose are metabolized differently, cutting back on overall sugar intake and HFCS intake in particular is not crazy IMO. The second ingredient in "whole-wheat" bread is usually corn syrup.
He is! He also recently made a bison testicle shake, which was a step too far for me.
Hyenas wake up early in the morning, run around repetitively and eat nothing but protein and fruit. Do you want to root around inside corpses and gibber madly like a hyena? And have female genitalia indistinguishable from male genitalia? No. So keep eating crescent rolls while hitting the snooze button.
I just finished a whole bag of Swedish Fish.
Do you want to triple your muscle in a year?
Depends on the muscle.
The premise of the paleo diet isn't using "food as medicine" and the "died at 30" counterargument is stupid for a number of reasons (the diet uses the pre-Neolithic diet as indicative of foods that are actually better for you in a sustainable way, not recreating an environment that will reproduce prehistoric mortality rates).
Milk wouldn't be cave-approved, since lactose tolerance in adult humans postdates building shelter and tending herd animals.
I just want to brag that our son may have pre-shelter-building-and-herd-tending lactose tolerance.
He also recently made a bison testicle shake, which was a step too far for me.
That doesn't seem to difficult. Getting away afterwards is the challenge.
The whole premise of a diet derived from preagricultural ancestors who died at 30 is fucked.
Isn't the common notion that people ever lived that short a time a misinterpretation of "average life expectancy," a figure which includes infant mortality?
Yeah. I don't really buy absolutely all of the low-carb/paleo type stuff -- there's an undercurrent of 'man make fire, man kill mighty beast, man not eat food with lady-cooties' about it -- but the diet food industry, and the low-fat thing are clearly bollocks.
This is true, and perhaps this is the thread for me to share the conclusions that I recently came to about paleo/low-carb diets after a recent conversation in real life.
I don't pretend to follow the various competing claims of the different diets. I am, however perfectly happy to believe that much of what most people eat isn't actually good for them. I would add to that, however, the note that there are many things which are common in the modern world which are objectively not good for people but are things that most people can tolerate for long periods of time -- bad diet, spending long amounts of time in noisy environments, air pollution, bad posture, poor ergonomics, time spent in traffic, etc . . .
People being different some people are going to have a harder time than others putting up with any of those stressors. I think it makes sense for each person to try to reduce the stresses that are either (a) easy to address or (b) things that they, particularly, suffer from.
So I don't doubt that for some (many) people a paleo diet might solve a real problem -- because they happen to be a person who is particularly sensitive to the negative effects of foods which are excluded by the paleo diet. But it doesn't follow from that that everybody would benefit equally from a paleo diet.
Diet may be the low-hanging fruit for some people, but it won't be for everybody.
Diet may be the low-hanging fruit for some people, but it won't be for everybody.
You mean like short paleos?
He also recently made a bison testicle shake, which was a step too far for me.
That doesn't seem to difficult. Getting away afterwards is the challenge.
Nah, just don't try to get away without finishing them off.
Isn't the common notion that people ever lived that short a time a misinterpretation of "average life expectancy," a figure which includes infant mortality?
In early modern times, probably mediaeval and iron age, yes. But palaeolithic bodies of people over 40 are pretty uncommon. Most Neanderthals were dead before they hit 30, and although the upper palaeolithic populations survived slightly better, they almost never made old bones by modern standards. Life was just too fucking hard.
I had a bison filet mignon for lunch yesterday.* Jesus that was good. I'm thinking of wrapping one of the lesser steaks in bacon later in the week. No caveman had a chance to combine them. Sadly.
Just had a salad today. I'm regular enough at the place that the server (young woman with several visible piercings, including a lip ring) was willing to tell me that she'd been out hunting this weekend, and decided not to take a couple of pretty good shots, but not regular enough for her to be any more specific about where she's going to get that big buck later in the month than "up near Canada."
* I have 25 or 30 lbs to eat before the rancher slaughters this year's animals.
I'm honestly unsure of how age estimates for neolithic populations are made, probably from the distribution of ages of skeletons that were intentionally buried. I don't know whether or not infants were buried, but would be surprised if they were.
I guess I'm reacting to the linked sites that hyperventilate about some detail of the biochemistry of metabolizing soybeans. Look, in a time-stressed sedentary lifestyle, anything that causes a person to pay better attention to diet and exercise is a net win. Halford, more power to you for finding something that works.
I guess I'm reacting to the implicit claim that this is a generic solution, that eg elderly farmers in Japan should ease up on the tofu.
I tried to gesture at why it is so complicated to get a good empirical basis for diet studies-- metabolizing food is a challenge for lots of animals, and when you look at the system in detail, many pieces do not work very well. I'm not talking about just humans and their search for a magic diet for staying sexy while eating fries-- this kind of thing shows up very quickly in inbred populations.
It's a complex problem to analyze without social pressures and with controlled experiments; we don't have the experiments and do have the pressures, so I think this means only the crudest truths are discernable. Imagining a simpler population is IMO not helpful beyond serving as a motivational aid and a generic reminder to ease up on processed food for rich folks in the US. Which foods should be cooked according to this theory, for example?
he diet uses the pre-Neolithic diet as indicative of foods that are actually better for you in a sustainable way
Wait, what? What's sustainable about a meat-heavy diet? Bugs, sure, but bison?
Oh, I guess you probably meant a diet that one is likely to stay on. Whoops.
Honestly, I totally agree with 160. A lot of the more extreme claims about digestive effect are pretty clearly pure ungrounded speculation
I totally agree with 160.
Yes, mozzarellla and ricotta are delicious.
Regarding Philly cream cheese, I just remembered that a popular snack as a child was Carl Buddig's uber-salty beef lunch meat, rolled up with cream cheese in the middle. It's a miracle I survived childhood.
This kind of thing is what we had.
I would butter an avocado. (I admit, I never actually have buttered an avocado, but if I thought of a reason to, I would.)
We eat avocado on buttered toast for lunch about four days a week.
My dad just recently got a 19th century Czech cookbook. Both there and in Dickens, crustaceans get lots of play. They used to be cheaper than fish in markets, a protein staple for people that didn't have much money.
They're more sensitive than fish to pH fluctuations and maybe other chemical pollutants, so that's changed.
268: Toasted English muffin, topped with mashed, salted avocado, topped with grated cheddar, and broiled, is very pleasant if you're looking for a variation.
I eat salted avocados standing up over the sink with lime juice dripping down my chin. Is there another way?
I eat salted avocados standing up over the sink with lime juice dripping down my chin. Is there another way?
Stop the (food) porn! I am starving now!
Hey academic people, I have an etiquette question.
What's the appropriate way to handle a (previously-unknown) professor who assigned her entire class the task of interviewing people at organizations like yours, and then provided them with a list of 3-4 organizations max?
I've dealt with 11 of these so far and I'm getting kind of cranky. I realize you can't hold the professor responsible for the fact that approximately 35% of graduate students cannot be bothered to read any publicly available information before contacting you, but the assignment in general is pretty weak and I have a lot more energy for helping students if I think they're going to get something real out of the experience.
What I'd like to do is:
- Call and introduce myself
- Let her know that while we're generally happy to talk to students about our work, these kinds of assignments do add up and put a burden on small organizations
- Ask what the purpose of the assignment was and offer some suggestions for how it could be reframed
Would this be viewed as meddlesome? In my head this feels like a perfectly reasonably phone call (given that it is several steps more temperate than my instinctive response) but in umpty-ump years of dealing with academics I have generally found that my idea of a useful response overlaps very poorly with theirs. Advice welcome (including "Ignore it" -- although I'm slightly worried that it will just pop up again next semester).
I predict at least one headline involving the phrase "Nittany Lyin'".
Not an academic, but that sounds eminently reasonable to me. Pointing out that eleven of her students have called, and at a half-hour (or whatever) each that's a lot of your time is very reasonable. Maybe suggest that if she's going to do it again, she should assign the students to find their own targets and run them by her to avoid duplicates?
You could just yell at the students for bothering you and tell them to do some goddamned legwork before calling the same damn place as everybody else, goddamned poor excuses for scholars.
re: 269
I've noticed the only seafood, other than some sort of generic 'ryby' and 'kapr' that Czechs seem to eat, are 'krevety', and the latter often taste wrong, to me. Like they've been poorly frozen, or something. I have a couple of English translations of traditional Czech cookbooks, but I don't remember either having a lot crustaceans. Probably too modern. 50s/60s, iirc. e.g. Brizova's, Czechoslovak Cookbook.
Or alternately you could start lying hilariously egregiously to the students.
Okay, best of all, start lying to the students, but lie to every student in identically worded ways, so that when they turn in their assignments the professor angrily accuses them of particularly inept plagiarism.
279 is hilarious, in that this morning in exasperation I did actually cut-and-paste part of my e-mail response, and had the half-guilty thought "I hope this doesn't get them in trouble."
It would be extremely funny to think up nonsensical responses, but my experience is that people are so poorly informed on these issues that they will think almost anything is plausible.
Trying to be funny just ends up backfiring, as you then spend three times as much time trying to beat back the misconception. ("Why yes, I did say that our area is currently experiencing an influx of Uighurs. No, I did not say 'tigers.' No, actually we haven't seen any Uighurs. That was a joke.")
Thanks, this is very cathartic.
I'm realizing that part of what irritates me is that if the professor actually did give them just 3-4 organizations to choose from, in a city with at least 80 organizations who could intelligently respond to this assignment, I'm irked at her lack of effort.
If you could get them to buy that there was an influx of tigers, all the better.
"That's right, yes. They get kept as pets."
Sounds totally reasonable to me, but depending on the person actually reaching her by phone may not work. I don't even know how the phone on my office works. Even if I did know how it worked I probably wouldn't answer it.
The traditional way to talk to profs is to show up during office hours (even if you're not in their current class), but presumably that's way more work than you're willing to do. I suppose if calling doesn't work then sending an email asking to set up a phone call might.
Maybe you should telephone her eleven times, talking for thirty minutes each time.
282 - "No, no, no. Not, "tigers", 'Tigers'. Tamil separatists have been resettling here after their guerilla movement was crushed in Sri Lanka."
And then maybe you can suggest that Sally Kimball and Leroy Brown are on the case.
Witt, I think the best thing to do is to send the professor an email with some examples of your copy-and-pasted emails to the students. You get to explain why you repeated yourself (it was a burden), you get to show the professor the source material (thus rewarding the students who do extra research), and you get to demonstrate why having every student interview the same harassed person leads to uninteresting results.
I would also follow up to make sure that the professor saw your email. One thing that working for OCD egomaniacs has taught me is that repeatedly emailing and calling and demanding confirmation of receipt actually works. And it's not like you would really mind pestering her a bit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Av-vf9ZEjE
Seemed pertinent.
Ok, am I just out to think poorly of my brother or is this funny? My cousin is getting married on Hokey Pokey's first birthday. My mom sent out an email to my siblings that she wanted to get a cake and have a small birthday party in the morning, since the wedding isn't until late afternoon.
My brother called me and asked if we could not have birthday cake at Hokey Pokey's birthday party. They don't want their kid eating sugar twice in one day, and there will be cake at the wedding.
I was at a loss. "It's his first birthday! I like to watch them play in the cake and take photos...?"
Obviously there are plenty of easy compromises and I don't really care. But it's a weird request, isn't it? Or am I being sensitive?
288: Your brother is fucking insane. No, no, no. He can tell his kid s/he doesn't get cake.
Well, completely anonymous, first-time commenter, I think maybe you're brother is being a bit too sensitive.
Have him call the wedding people and make the same request.
It's a weird request.
At the same time, no one should have to endure cake twice in one day.
Whenever we have cake in the office, I always do my best to make sure that nobody else has to suffer through a second helping.
I called my other brother to mock the first. He thought it was weird.
[comment has expired]
I am definitely going to redact this comment before going to bed tonight, for the record.
Your brother* is insane. I would smush some cake in his kid's face, just to show him.
*actually, with absolutely no knowledge at all, I would bet $5 that it's the Mom who is driving this. Sexist, but I bet I'm right.
Also, good. Thanks for the solidarity, all.
actually, with absolutely no knowledge at all, I would bet $5 that it's the Mom who is driving this. Sexist, but I bet I'm right.
Oh, you're 10000% right.
At some point*, the whole mother-in-law problem switched genders and I don't know why.
*1992
Really? I think it switched generations. My sister-in-laws treat my mom like crap.
How on earth could the bride's thunder be stolen by an infant bday party about which she likely will not know? Good christ. Put Hokey in a poofy white dress and take lots of pix!
295: I would not bet against you on this. I know all too many crazy-about-food-their-kids-get moms. Nutty, but common.
More cake, less after-the-fact redacting. That's my platform.
Also, the bride is gracious and low-key and silly and generally great. And my mom is unbelievably self-effacing and worried about pleasing others. To read the situation as one stealing the other's thunder is a wild misreading of people SIL has known for many years.
299: That's what I meant. The old joke was the guy ripping on his mother-in-law. Of course, my dad and grandma got along great.
Or was the old joke that the mother-in-law attacked the son-in-law? Probably depends on which movies you watched in 1952.
I thought it was that the mother wanted to run her son's life, and thus the daughter-in-law was mad that the husband was still clinging to the apron strings.
291: That's the best. Also, I don't think I've ever been at a wedding where I've actually eaten wedding cake. Really. But that's because everybody is too busy drinking, so if your family is more abstemious than mine, the cake might actually get served.
I always eat cake at weddings. I pass on the almonds covered in candy.
Fine. If I get drunk enough, I'll eat anything including wedding almonds.
Whichever of them is driving it is either an idiot or is messing with you. Ignore them.
142, 310: Amy Sedaris merging Moby food sub-threads.
If you're looking for a wedding present, heebie, I just bought a piece of art for my wife's birthday* from mcmc, and I couldn't really be more delighted with the purchase. Which is to say for (insert reasonable sum x here -- please consult the artist for specifics) you can present your brother and sister-in-law with an original work of art. It's really quite extraordinary. As an added bonus, I feel like one of the Medicis. And you can, too!
* No, I'm not offering you the present I bought my wife. Don't be grabby. Buy your own art.
Actually, she made an idle comment years ago that she would like to have some highly technical math jargony page to hang on her wall, as art, so I was going to grab a page from an article and modify it so that it was mostly math, but also about the bride and groom if you look closely, and have it framed.
That sounds like a great deal of effort. Don't they want a place setting or something?
Nah, I mean going into some LaTeX file on my computer and futzing around with the subscripts and changing a word here and there.
316 sounds very cool, actually, though I'm having sort of a hard time imagining exactly what you mean. But that's because I'm not very creative. I hire other people to make art for me, after all, rather than trying to make it myself.
I hire other people to appreciate art for me.
He also said that his wife's reaction was that my mom was out to steal the bride's thunder.
You are only allowed to think about the bride that day. If you usually sleep in a white or even a light colored nightgown, you should find something else for the night before, so as not to steal her thunder. You may not eat anything for breakfast or lunch that might later be served at the wedding. This includes water.
I would like 316 if it involved lots of constructivisty Helvetica in red & black.
Speaking of weddings -- and y'all know I don't like to essentialize (that's what people in Russia do!) -- but when you look at formal pictures of wedding parties, the groomsmen all look relieved and the bridesmaids all look irritated?
The drinking is about to start/their feet hurt.
322.2: Does it matter if the photos are taken before or after the wedding?
It seems to me that they do. But perhaps I'm projecting. I don't actually go to that many weddings, partly because I tell anyone who will listen that I find most weddings horrible and boring. So perhaps I'm not looking at a diverse enough array of wedding party shots.
Now that I think about it, when you're actually at the wedding, the groomsmen just tend to stand around looking gormless, as though they are thinking "Shit, I should have paid more attention at the rehearsal. Fuck, I am so hungover right now."
Stupid love and commitment, wasting everybody's afternoon.
I'm pretty sure I was kind of annoyed during the capturing of both of the sets of (formal, posed) wedding pictures that I appeared in as a groomsman, because they were taking a long time and the photographer kept asking us to do dumb stuff.
Never buy insurance from a photographer.
An increasing number of weddings I go to have the photobooth setup. DIY, yo.
We did, as did three out of four of the weddings we've been to in the past two years.
And nobody steals the camera or shoots a close up of a dog's butt?
Dogs aren't allowed at human weddings, only at puptials.
Truly, we live in an age of marvels:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jX3iLfcMDCw&feature=uploademail
If dogs aren't allowed at weddings, why do they have carving stations at them?
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to carve.
328: Stupid love and commitment, wasting everybody's afternoon.
Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth
The old joke was the guy ripping on his mother-in-law.
The new joke is the guy whipping out for his mother-in-law:
A long time ago you had a question from a MIL whose son-in-law was flashing her. Most of the comments seemed to suggest she was overreacting or even a fantasist. Not that much later, a website was reported in the news, which I won't link to, in which flashers and perverts gave each other tips. The number one target was MILs.
I'm pretty sure I just did the least effective google-proofing ever. I began with the weak premise that I just needed to hide from search engines, and therefore I just needed to mask the most egregious comments, and then it turned out I had a lot to say, and so I lapsed into absurd spottiness. Night all.
277. krevety
Yes, the animal people used to eat was crayfish, genus Astacus, vanishing as a food in my dad's childhood. Krevety are deep-frozen shrimp, I wouldn't eat them in CZ without asking about the source myself. The old cookbook is Rettigova, archaic.
342: I wouldn't eat them in CZ without asking about the source myself
Great Old Ones? Secret Nazi shrimp-eugenics program? Rosicrucians?
re: 342
Yeah, when I've bought krevety in Prague I've bought them from the Tesco at Národní třída, or one of the big hypermarket type places [also Tesco, I think] at Letňany. Not good in either case. I'd never buy them in a restaurant or pub. As a British person, buying seafood or shellfish in a land-locked country is always going to be a disappointment.
335: That video is sort of disturbing. I don't like those cat-monsters.
As a British person, buying seafood or shellfish in a land-locked country is nearly always going to be a disappointment.
I thought that unless you are literally buying from the dock, it doesn't much matter where you buy fish these days, since it's basically all air freighted anyway.
Not in the UK, where nowhere is more than about 80 miles from the sea, and most places are much closer than that.
I'd be mildly shocked if fish stocks that can be provided by day fishermen from the North Sea or Channel or Irish Sea provide a significant amount of the fish consumed in the UK. If so, that's great, because it means that you've cut way down on overfishing. I know that there are substantial salmon farms in Scotland.
unless you are literally buying from the dock
I never go to my fish store until quite late in the afternoon, because if you go too early the guy often isn't back from the boats yet. Though then you do get to see what stuff doesn't come "from the dock." Turns out to be most of the expensive stuff-- tuna, salmon, monkfish, etc. No surprise. Porgies FTW!
I don't get what you are saying? Where else does the fish come from? It comes from the sea around the UK, and is, largely, road-freighted as, as I said, nowhere in the UK is very far from the sea. The UK also has the second largest fishing fleet in Europe, by gross tonnage. It's still a net importer of fish, but domestic fish production covers most of UK fish consumption. There can be several days between catch and consumption, though.
My neighborhood hasn't got a fish store, so we hardly ever eat fish, which is a shame, because I like it. It just seems wrong to buy fish in a non-specialist store; I don't trust supermarkets with fish.
352: Who needs a fish store? You've got the East River right there!
You don't fish in the East River, you fish in the Hudson -- pretty good bass fishing. And if you're not pregnant or growing, they're perfectly safe to eat once a month or less.
You don't fish in the East River
You don't go fishing in the East River. The creatures in the East River go humaning.
You don't fish in the East River
Expand your palette!
You go painting instead?
We have an embarrassment of riches, fish-store-wise. Yay for Portuguese immigrants!
||
Pvt Hendrix plays a musical instrument in a band off duty and has let this interfere with his military duties in so much as missing bed check and not getting enough sleep. He has no interest whatsoever in the Army.
|>
360: but I mucked up the HTML so my moral superiority is completely undermined.
At least in the US, very little of the most commonly consumed fish comes from local waters (local
meaning you take your boat out and bring the fish back and sell without flash freezing) -- it's largely imported or flown at great distance, either from the Pacific or Alaska. It would surprise me if the same wasnt true for the UK, and I'd guess that the main fish market for London restaurants isn't full of imports. For multiple-day fishing trips (e.g., a boat that sets sail from Cornwall but goes fishing off of Labrador) there's no real difference in the freshness between it and something that's air freighted from Anchorage to Kiev -- you're using the same flash freezing method. The best fish in the world is in Tokyo and Seoul, but it's not because of large local stocks -- it's because they are the capitols of the world fish importing business.
Honestly, though, and I'm about the least preachy or inclined to these things of people I know, I have qualms about eating fish in general. Overfishing is an extreme problem and unless you're hyperconscious there's no real way to know where you're getting your fish as a consumer.
359: When he was found to be missing, Sp/4 Mattox and Pvt Mattox went looking for him and later found him in the latrine masturbating to his military career.
I sometimes think that I'd like to eat fish and meat again, but the sourcing is such a problem that I drop the whole idea. The option of buying half a pig or cow is appealing, but that is so much meat for someone who is only occasionally mildly interested in the concept.
that is so much meat
I have vivid memories from my childhood of the day we'd get our share of the couple of cows my grandfather or uncle had just gotten butchered. Filling up the chest freezer with so. much. meat.
Too bad so much of that ground beef got used in Hamburger Helper.
365: You'd have to go in with a committed carnivore; they buy the side of meat, you buy bits of it from them. Like buying drugs in college.
Or start yourself off with chicken (other poultry? rabbits? kid? lamb? any other smaller animals I'm not thinking of?) where a whole animal isn't overly intimidating.
Some friends and I bought half a pig that we parceled out among ourselves and cooked for a dinner party the weekend before last, and yes, that was so much meat. We had 20 or so eaters and probably could have used another 20. But then I wouldn't have had delicious leftovers.
Having a fractional interest in a bison lets you feel all smug and politically correct and also lets you have a shit ton of tasty meat. Win win.
Actually, Whole Foods is very good about identifying sourcing for meat. For fish (a) there just seems to be a lot more fraudsterism and (b) there just is something that feels different, to me, about fish production, which is basically strip mining a disappearing food source vs. meat production, which is something that could, in theory (and increasingly in practice) be done in a controlled and sustainable way.
There are some super-duper-hippie-much-loved chicken options close to here. I could do that. But then my attention wanders again.
Tell me more about this fractional interest in a bison. How much is a 'shit ton' of meat? Do you get it all at once, I assume? It sounds like an interesting option, but apartment-dwellers don't have room for a chest freezer.
But then my attention wanders again.
You're probably B12 deficient. Try eating some meat.
If I were a longtime vegetarian thinking about dipping a toe back into meat, I'd ask a carnivore friend (who I trusted to manage the ethical sourcing and so on) to cook for me. It seems like you'd want to be sure you liked it before getting into buying and cooking it.
I got it through my gym about 6 months ago -- it was I think an 8th of an animal (?). Anyhow, probably about 15 steaks of different cuts, some briskets and stew meat, some bones, and a lot of ground meat. I think it cost $175, and took up multiple shelves in a freezer. I went through it pretty fast, like ate it all in a month, and haven't gotten another one, mostly out of laziness, but I'll bet I could find one with a little effort.
I remember liking meat a lot as a kid. It often looks and smells good to me. I'd be surprised if I didn't like it.
Eh. So far my interest hasn't overcome my current identity as a vegetarian. Even slight barriers are enough to turn my (occasional, mild) interest in eating meat away.
374 -- That's pretty pricey, but then I suppose it's not very convenient for you to get bison to where you are.
I will say that the quality of the meat was fantastic. But yeah, this was the big city price.
meat again, but the sourcing is such a problem
Can't speak to fish much, but our local farmer's market has lots and lots of small local meat producers. Is that less common in California?
We have a few stands at the west end of the Sunday market. The fish are dicey, not because I don't believe that the vendors caught the fish locally but because I don't know how those particular fish stocks are doing. Plus, mercury.
The other stands might be a good option, even for my hippy sensibilities. But then I'm reminded that meat costs even more than mushrooms!
Obviously, I'm just playing "yes, but", which is a dumb game. When I want it more, I'll be able to get good local meat.
meat costs even more than mushrooms!
Sure, because mushrooms are gross not-even-plants that grow on piles of shit and rotting logs.
Comment 381 sponsored by apostropher's Not-Quite-Rational Food Aversions and the Carolina Pork Council.
don't have room for a chest freezer
Freezers under 2 cubic feet are made now. I bought mine mail order, for this very reason (storing happy cow beef, expensive but not nuts in bulk, completely insane prices retail).
I did the math wrong -- and shouldn't be commenting while also working. Halford, that's a good price. 1/8 buff ought to be at least 50 pounds of meat, and at $175, that's less than $4 a pound.
re: 362
It depends on the fish. But, as I already said, the UK is ridiculously tiny, and water-bound compared to the US. Large swathes of the US are a very long way from the coast, in a way that isn't remotely true for the UK.
I did look this up earlier [being teh anal]. The UK exports quite a lot of fish, but imports about 20% more than it exports, making it a net importer. Actual UK fish consumption is less than the UK catch, but I presume the short-fall covers a lot of fish that's caught not for human consumption, and the fact that we consume some fish that we don't catch a huge amount of locally, while exporting fish like mackerel which we catch a lot of. Anyway, a lot of fish species in the UK are caught and eaten in the UK, in just the sort of way you think doesn't happen. Brought into the big UK fish ports, taken to fish markets, sold in fish mongers or supermarkets.
Quite a bit, especially cod and tuna, does come from quite a long way away, yeah. But lots of other species do not. I don't see how your understanding of the US fish market -- large country, huge area with no coast -- translates to the UK -- physically very small country, shit-loads of coast.
I'm just resisting the idea that in the modern world you can tell much about where the fish you're eating comes from by how close to the coast you are. Mostly, that's not very true anymore, at least here, so I suspect (but, really, am guessing) that the fact that the UK is an island doesn't have very much at all to do with the quality of the seafood there. But if there is really large scale consumption of fish that comes from truly local waters, then I'm wrong, and that's great. What fish are those?
If I had to guess, I'd bet that generally speaking the reason why seafood is a lot better in the UK than the Czech Republic (if true) is that the UK is much richer than the Czech Republic.
So my stats class is going well, which is probably for the best as I just learned that one of the teachers has an office on the same short hallway where I have my auxiliary office. But more I'm going to have to study enough to avoid careless errors on the test.
Well, the UK has a large fishing fleet, and the infrastructure to move that fish from ports to market (e.g. places like Billingsgate in London), which the Czech republic obviously does not. So if you want local (ish) caught fish, you can have it. Fish in supermarkets is usually labelled with the source, and often the method of catch. So line-caught sustainably fished stuff will be marked as such. There are various schemes to try and encourage sustainable fisheries via labelling and promotion of species that aren't over-fished. Lots of species are eaten. Quite a lot of which is, to be honest, unsustainably fished cod and haddock, and the UK has the same problems with over-fishing that everywhere else does. But there's so many species other than those caught and eaten I couldn't list them.
I don't eat a huge amount of fish, but in the past year I've eaten mackerel, haddock, dab, sole, skate, and various other things like squid, octopus, langoustine, and bog standard prawns [which were frozen, and certainly not locally sourced]. Also fresh-water fish like trout, and salmon. The latter were farmed, rather than wild, though.
I remember the fish and chip shop I used to go to in Falkirk selling a lot of less common things, too. Even odd stuff like conger eel.