Re: A Calorie Is An Evil Demon Out To Deceive You

1

How does this compare to, say, what Gary Taubes has been writing about for years? Just in that it's published in JAMA?


Posted by: Nathan Williams | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 11:40 AM
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They approvingly cite Taubes in their Times piece. So yeah, this JAMA write-up has the flavor of emerging consensus.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 11:55 AM
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It's not that I don't trust scientific consensus, but on dietary stuff I don't trust scientific consensus until it's been stable for a couple of decades at least. There have been a bunch of scientific consensuses that seem to have faded away.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 12:06 PM
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I don't know that that's a real pattern, and not an artifact of medical reporting. This explains the problem pretty well. He's a little too snarky at huffpo, but if you read to the end, you'll get to his very sensible academic stuff, where he explains that actually, we have a very good idea of what a healthy diet is.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 12:27 PM
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Let's all post our refined carbohydrate intake.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 12:29 PM
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Of course, Katz disagrees with these guys, so maybe he's not the best guy to link in this context.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 12:32 PM
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The link in 4 leads to what may be the most annoying (and seemingly worthless) web thing I have ever gone to. If Dr. Katz were here in front of me I'd kill him and eat him.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 12:35 PM
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Shorter 6 & 7: LB is right.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 12:35 PM
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Refined carbs aren't making me fat! They're making me big-boned!


Posted by: OPINIONATED CARTMAN | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 1:01 PM
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Man, I just love me some refined carbs.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 2:02 PM
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The idea that carbs and especially refined/processed carbs are bad for you is pretty much a given these days. Almost every "fad diet" includes that advice, and most nutritionists agree with it (though they still think fats are bad for you). LB's decades of agreement are pretty much there on this issue.

One thing that isn't mentioned much is that when you look at the published calories a particular food claims to provide, it's entirely wrong. "Calories" are determined by burning the item and seeing the heat that comes out (duh: that's what a calorie is, a unit of heat). That's not how digestion works though.

First, most of the digestion that helps us (rather than our bacterial ecosystem) is done in the small intestine. The bacteria in the large intestine get the rest, but that's not your body, it's your bacterial symbiotes.

Second, food preparation (i.e., cooking) makes a big difference in how many calories are extractable. You can starve on a raw food diet if you aren't careful, you can get all the calories you need on a much smaller amount of cooked food.


Posted by: DaveLMA | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 2:03 PM
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I'm willing to be believe it, but have to follow an 80/20 strategy. I never or hardly ever drink pop. But bread and pasta and cake are part of civilized living, particularly with my wife, and there the point is moderation. For lunch just now, after I'd read the OP and been reminded of its plausibility, we had Lagano, a kind of Greek foccacia. I limited myself to 2 small pieces, and the rest of the family, over for the hockey game devoured the rest. You need a strategy, and to be flexible about it.


Posted by: idp | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 2:19 PM
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Nutritionists don't think that carbohydrates are bad for you. Esp. if you're not sedentary you better eat some carbs.


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 3:14 PM
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That was me. Apart from trans fats pretty much everything is good for you, as long as you get the right amount of it.


Posted by: David the Unfogged Commenter | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 3:17 PM
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Your "civilized" diet is making you obese and weak. I think nutritionists should pay reparations for the harm 30 years of low fat bullshit has caused and the weak/fat/dead bodies it has created.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 4:35 PM
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Of course you should eat carbs. If they're coming mostly from things like bread you are makin yourself needlessly fat and weak.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 4:37 PM
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I get most of mine from beer and potatoes.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 4:39 PM
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We can't all subsist on strange Melnibonean drugs and the odd soul, Elric.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 4:44 PM
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This kind of thing is by itself sufficient to alienate plenty of decent people. And their instinct is perfectly sound, for the food-crank is by definition a person willing to cut himself off from human society in hopes of adding five years on to the life of his carcase; that is, a person but of touch with common humanity

Posted by: idp | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 5:03 PM
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Glucagon shots, anyone?


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 5:50 PM
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Roast pork, stewed rhubarb, and baked sweet potatoes. I'm not sure if it's a medically approved diet, but I like it.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 5:59 PM
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I can't remember which is rhubarb and which is rutabaga, but I can't recall liking either.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 6:01 PM
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Maybe I should try rutabaga in a pie with strawberries.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 6:04 PM
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I accidentally talked Megan into making a rhubarb/potato gratin once, that should have been rutabaga/potato. She was very polite about it.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 6:11 PM
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I'm browning butter for chocolate chip cookies because I made the mistake of trying the perfect cookie recipe back when someone here linked it. Life used to be so simple.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 6:13 PM
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Rutabaga and Rhubarb happen to be among my favorite foods, since childhood. And I think LB's dinner sounds great.

Had dinner last Sunday at Prairie Grass--I'm sure Ogged knows it--for Mother's day. My wife had a rhubarb pie for dessert that was not over-sweetened, as I admit my mother used to do, where the tartness really came through. My mom used to give me stalks of Rhubarb to snack on. She'd put sugar on hers but I liked the tartness from an early age. Looked just like a red celery stock, but didn't taste like it.


Posted by: idp | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 6:14 PM
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Near the soccer field, there was either wild rhubarb or a weed that looks like wild rhubarb. Opinions differed, but nobody wanted to eat any.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 6:16 PM
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Somebody else said it was poisonous if raw.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 6:19 PM
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The grill is just about ready to put the steaks on.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 6:25 PM
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30

If refined carbs are so bad then why are Asians so healthy, when they eat a lot of white rice?


Posted by: PGD | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 6:42 PM
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30: I think quantity counts. (Laydeez?)

There are also rice-centered traditional diets where people do get fat. Tamil food has a lot of basically sauces that you eat on rice, and my ex's family would joke about the "Tamil rice belly."


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 6:51 PM
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"Tamil rice belly."

That sounds sort of like a human rights abuse committed by the Sri Lankan government.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 7:23 PM
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Anyway, I'm having beer and salami instead of beer and birthday cake because health.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 7:32 PM
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I accidentally talked Megan into making a rhubarb/potato gratin once, that should have been rutabaga/potato.

?! Ouch. Not a huge fan of either but I'm trying to imagine the gratin with rhubarb and um... Did it have gruyere as well?


Posted by: teraz kurwa my | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 7:50 PM
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|:

WTFing fuck, rural America. Do you have to live up to the worst stereotypes about you? I'm home visiting my dad for less than 24 hours before there's a terrible gun accident locally. Ten-year-old daughter of a woman the year ahead of me in school, shot in the neck with a shotgun.

|>


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 8:03 PM
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|:

WTFing fuck, rural America. Do you have to live up to the worst stereotypes about you? I'm home visiting my dad for less than 24 hours before there's a terrible gun accident locally. Ten-year-old daughter of a woman the year ahead of me in school, shot in the neck with a shotgun.

|>


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 8:03 PM
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37

Jesus, Blume. That makes me so sad and scared. We're not rural, but it's still all too close.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 8:07 PM
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38

What about the corresponding stereotype about urban America?

Sunday night news is all about driveby shootings, right now.


Posted by: idp | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 8:41 PM
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35: Ouch.

My hometown newspaper now has a special section for marijuana-related news.


Posted by: torrey pine | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 8:53 PM
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40

It wasn't great, strangely tart. Would not make again.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 9:01 PM
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I think the theory of reversing cause and effect makes sense, but I don't believe that carbohydrates are the culprit.* People have been eat very high carb diets for a very long time without an increase in obesity. Europeans and Asians also eat pretty carb heavy diets, and obesity there is not at American levels. My hypothesis is that the chemicals we use to package and put in our foods are messing with our hormonal balances and metabolisms. Isn't BPA an endocrine disrupter? I wouldn't be surprised if the rise in obesity corresponds with the rise in mass processed foods and the increasing ubiquity of plastic packaging much more than it corresponds to a radical fundamental shift in diet. Other countries have plastic packaging obviously, but Americans have carried it to a new level. How many people microwave meals in plastic? Or wash tupperware in the dishwasher? Buy pre-chopped vegetables in plastic bags? Fruit wrapped in plastic? Another not totally related possibility is the corn syrup in everything. It's possible to consume massive amounts of corn syrup without ever actually eating anything that tastes sweet. Of course the corn syrup is balanced with sodium to cut the sweetness, so you end up with a bland-tasting food that is twice as lethal as it should be. Again, everyone eats processed food with random crap in it, but Americans really take it to the next level. (One word: Gogurt.)

*Says with full confidence without reading the actual journal article. Nothing like a little armchair nutrition


Posted by: Buttercup | Link to this comment | 05-18-14 11:37 PM
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Somebody clearly hacked the website linked in 4 to replace whatever ogged had in mind with the ravings of a madman.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:47 AM
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43

You seem to be giving ogged too much credit. Haven't you noticed how he keeps trying to give right-wingers the benefit of the doubt in an effort to find common ground?


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:49 AM
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35, 36: Talking Points Memo has been running these sorts stories in the sidebar and it's almost every day.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 4:05 AM
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+of


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 4:06 AM
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the ravings of a madman

I acknowledged his Huffington Post stuff is annoying! My wife uses his book for clinicians, and finds it excellent. And if you had clicked every link in the linked piece, as you should have, you would have gotten to this academic paper, which is a very good summary of the state of research on various diets.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 4:24 AM
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Also, sorry, Blume. That stuff happens so frequently nationally that people become inured to hearing about it, but when it happens locally, it really shakes people up.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 4:26 AM
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What about the corresponding stereotype about urban America?

Sunday night news is all about driveby shootings, right now.

No matter where you are, guns are heaps of fun!


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 4:36 AM
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46: I may have been reading carelessly, but that paper doesn't seem to draw any conclusions beyond Bittman's "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Not that it should, if the science for anything more specific isn't there, but not particularly thrilling informational content.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 4:41 AM
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Hmm, I thought that was Pollan's aphorism. But agree with your assessment.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 5:08 AM
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51

Very possible, I get them confused.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 5:14 AM
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That is Pollan, and Katz agrees--that's pretty much Katz's thing, insofar as he has one: ignore the latest findings, we pretty much know what makes a good diet. He agrees with LB, in other words, contrary to stuff like what's in the OP.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 5:19 AM
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51: Which one is also called a "Swede"?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 5:20 AM
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Whichever one is operating a sensibly egalitarian bureaucratic state. (Actually, I think it's the rutabaga.)


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 5:24 AM
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55

I agree that that low carb is the way to go if you want to lose weight. That is what I do.

However, the article ends with a dismissal of all of the actual long-term studies of low carb diets in favor of yet to be done more rigorous studies that will surely show the benefits of the low carb diet. This time. Maybe.


Posted by: lemmy caution | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 5:37 AM
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Carbs are great if you are hungry. The potato's coming to Europe probably saved millions from starvation. Sugar was great when the alternative was hunger. Etc.

The problem is that refined carbs (and high fructose corn syrup seems to be the worst) don't satiate on the same profile as fats and proteins, so you have a tendency to just keep eating them if they are available. Americans get way too many calories from HFCS and sugar in general. I don't think that's true of most other countries.

I should have said "excessive carbs" earlier, I guess. I wear the collar of shame.


Posted by: DaveLMA | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 5:39 AM
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Oh. We thought those were jowls.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 5:47 AM
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But it's not really about "carbs," since veggies are carbs.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 5:52 AM
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Yeah, I get puzzled about this sort of dietary research. My prejudices are toward the Pollan conclusion -- there's nothing tricky here, people are fat because they eat too much processed sugar and starches. On the other hand, food's been pretty cheap in the US for a long time; wouldn't you think that it's fair to say that for the length of the twentieth century, most of the country was economically capable of buying as much food as they wanted to eat, which could have been white bread, potatoes, and sugary stuff? (Yes, there has been hunger in the US in the twentieth century, and still is, but even in the Depression not, I think, affecting most people.)

But Americans started getting surprisingly overweight in maybe the seventies, not earlier. Which makes me wonder if one of the magic-bullet explanations like HFCS being weirdly bad for you, or endocrine disruptors in plastic, or something, might not have some validity.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 6:07 AM
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Without rice/noodles/bread, cooking dinner would be a nightmare.

In other news, I've developed my mother's intolerance to sucrose/fructose/glucose. I assume mine is limited to pregnancy, but my mother's is chronic. Get super nauseated after eating sugar. Even fruit and tomatoes.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 6:09 AM
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61

But I thought that UMC Americans have basically not gained weight.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 6:11 AM
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62

61 to endocrine disrupters et al.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 6:12 AM
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61: They have, but not as much.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 6:13 AM
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My guess is that the delay isn't so much an endocrine disruptor as it is the drop in smoking and that you really need to start with the extra starch as a kid before you see the full effects.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 6:15 AM
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wouldn't you think that it's fair to say that for the length of the twentieth century, most of the country was economically capable of buying as much food as they wanted to eat

I rather doubt this. According to Table 3 in this PDF, at the start of the century food made up 41% of household budgets, and it only dropped slowly over the century.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 6:17 AM
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59.last: There was also a recent one about courses of antibiotics taken before age 3 correlating with adult obesity.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 6:21 AM
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67

I've always wondered in my own context, as I had fairly rapid weight gain. Admittedly around the time I had a thryoid tumour discovered/removed [ahem], but I've never quite been able to make sense of why I had a small amount of regular ongoing weight gain over 2 decades, consistent with a regular but small over-consumption of calories versus expenditure and then a sudden leap. So, if someone tells me it's an infection, or some hormonal shit, I'm right on top of that.*


* I don't really really think I'm the victim of plastics, or whatever.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 6:27 AM
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68

Obesity and guns. It's morning in Unfogged's America.


Posted by: Gonerill | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 7:00 AM
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69

If Americans could be persuaded to kill each other in other, more physically demanding ways, such as with spears, the additional aerobic exercise involved in regularly running away from someone who is waving a spear (or running after someone while waving a spear) would have a salutary effect on obesity rates.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 7:03 AM
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70

May the carbs be in your favor!


Posted by: Gonerill | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 7:04 AM
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re: 69

We are back to the whole thing of how scary cops would be if they were carrying katanas.*

* or the more culturally appropriate sabre**

** which wiki tells me, were used by Belgian gendarmes until the 1950s.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 7:10 AM
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71: Wasn't that the premiere way of maintaining the Tokugawa-era class structure? #bobsignal


Posted by: dalriata | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 7:22 AM
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So thanks to recurring kidney stones, I'm now on a low-oxalate diet, which basically consists of eating nothing that is good for me: no spinach, no swiss chard, no beets, no tahini or sesame seeds (super annoying - hummus is comfort food), no tea, no chocolate, no almonds, no whole wheat; a bunch of other semi-random forbidden items (including most nuts). Kale is sort of semi-okay. Also, there's controversy as to whether cutting oxalate intake actually makes any difference, though it seems to have in my case.


Posted by: Tom Scudder | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 7:22 AM
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72. Tokugawa arms control laws were pretty strict. Private ownership of edged weapons larger than -- I don't know, a paring knife? was banned. Villages had a communal cleaver tied to a stake, maybe there were exceptions for butchers and food shops also. But casual walking around with long blades, definitely out.

Also serfdom-- not sure how closely this mirrored European laws, but the basic economic reality that workers were tied to the land, and to the land's owner, that definitely held.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 7:40 AM
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It can't have been pleasant. I saw a documentary where a Japanese village was threatened with death if they didn't teach Richard Chamberlain to speak Japanese in a certain amount of time.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 7:46 AM
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24: was the intent to make a cardoon and potato gratin? Because that's all kinds of delicious. Lashings of olive oil, savory, garlic ... little grilled lamb, tomato salad, glass of rosé, and a ripe peach for desert. Mmmmmmmm.


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 8:19 AM
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66: Pollan had some article within last year or so re his gut population. Basically started with teeming masses of hipster microflora and bacteria, lovingly nurtured on artisanal sauerkraut and raw kale. One course of antibiotics related to dental work and you couldn't have picked his gut denizens out of a line up of random critters drawn entirely from the line at your local doughnut shop on a Thursday morning.


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 8:25 AM
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78

people are too concerned about getting every damn thing about their lives just right.


Posted by: cleek | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 9:11 AM
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79

So, I've been thinking about trying to make pasties with some kind of fake meat product, such as mock duck. Any thoughts on that? I feel like there should be some added grease of some kind, since fat isn't going t boil out of the fake meat as it would with real meat. But there will definitely be rutabaga.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 9:24 AM
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79 should probably be in the stripper thread.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 9:27 AM
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59.1: I dunno, I mean, I think there's a portion size/convenience aspect that is still particular to the last 40 years. Like, there's a little corner store on my block, and the ONLY things that are regularly restocked are pop, chips and Little Debbies. Everything else just sits around until the cooler breaks and they have to throw it out. And all of that stuff gets bigger over time -- back in the day you could only buy 12 oz cans or bottles, but now you have 20oz, 24oz, 1 liter, 1.5 liter, etc. And the bags of chips are much bigger too.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 9:29 AM
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82

That's the "Bloomberg was right" theory? That cultural/capitalist-marketing drift toward insane portion sizes is what's doing it?


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 9:31 AM
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83

79: just skip the whole pasties concept and make samosas. Honestly folks what is with the fake food thing? Actual real food tastes great! Just eat that! At mealtimes! With pleasant dining companions, whenever possible!


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 9:32 AM
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84

Mock duck is real food, isn't it? I mean, you can make seitan out of flour without doing anything too tricky to it. Doesn't conventionally go in a pasty, but eh.

(Although I had the same thought about samosas, that a veggie samosa recipe would be easier than inventing a vegetarian pasty. Although I don't make pasties, so maybe there's a standard vegetarian version.)


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 9:35 AM
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85

Buying some chips would be even easier.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 9:36 AM
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86

Aesthetically the yearning after meat but not eating it, and instead eating some simulacrum is puzzling to me. Perhaps as part of some fully fledged culinary tradition I could understand it, but fake duck in a pasty is several quacks too far for me.


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 9:39 AM
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With pleasant dining companions, whenever possible!

But until that point, with family.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 9:41 AM
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88

Or until the relentless sociability / politeness training takes firm root!

Lately mealtimes have gotten a bit raucous around the house as child wrote an arrangement of the International so he's spouting that incessantly, inspiring his father to retaliate by adopting Wine, Women & Song as his "theme song."


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 9:46 AM
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86: Meat has a particular sort of flavor/mouthfeel that it makes perfect sense to me might be desirable even if you have reasons not to eat actual meat. I get the disdain for fake food, but vegetarians are as likely to want a mouthful of something chewy and high-protein as anyone else, and things in that category get described as 'fake meat'.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 9:47 AM
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90

Having spent long stretches as both vegetarian and vegan, I still don't get it and suspect it has far more to do with lack of cooking skills than particular mouth feel.


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 9:50 AM
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79: I've made something kind of like that. I think if I were going for pasty, I'd boil the vegetables without the fake meat. I use SmartGround or something similar in mine so it's sort of ground beef texture. I'd sauté that in oil (vegan) or butter, then make gravy in the same pan (maybe with sautéed mushrooms and worcestershire or its vegan equivalent, too, so the gravy's not bland), then mix with the boiled veg. I suspect the texture of a meat substitute wouldn't hold up properly to boiling.


Posted by: ydnew | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 9:52 AM
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re:59/61 et al.

I think we shouldn't underestimate the effect that lack of physical activity is having too. Kids in the 70's and 80's lived very differently than those in the 2000's, and as far as I can tell were a lot more active, on average.


Posted by: Dee Lurking | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 9:53 AM
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93

Veganism is obviously a fraud. You can live without meat, but not without cheese.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 9:54 AM
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90: I don't use fake meat especially often, but I do use it in one particular recipe where I simply haven't found anything else that works in this. This particular turnover is also nice for potlucks, since it seems to be liked by both vegetarians and omnivores.


Posted by: ydnew | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 9:57 AM
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95

-in this


Posted by: ydnew | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 9:57 AM
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96

Vegans can drink beer, Moby. It's not as bad as all that.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 10:03 AM
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Strict vegans probably can't drink mead.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 10:06 AM
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90: I have the same conclusion from similar experience. I think a lot of the the "fake meat" packaging of proteins is just a way to answer "how do I cook this?", especially to audiences like many US/UK families that are indifferent cooks at best, and without an ethnic history including a lot of vegetable proteins (unlike, say South Asians or Mexicans).

As such, they usually aren't that good. Possible exceptions for things like some buddhist chinese dishes which have started as vegetarian alternates but over time have grown into their own thing.


Posted by: Dee Lurking | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 10:07 AM
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Vegans can drink beer, Moby.

Those assholes have no sympathy for the plight of the poor exploited yeast.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 10:09 AM
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97: If your aren't going to be strict about it, are you vegan? Or perhaps just some sort of vegetarian?


Posted by: Dee Lurking | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 10:09 AM
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re: 84

I've had amazing "mock duck" that was made, iirc, not with any seitan but with 4-5 different layers of differently prepared and pressed mushrooms.

Most of the actual duck I've had wasn't nearly as tasty.


Posted by: Dee Lurking | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 10:12 AM
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I grew up largely vegan, although I eat meat now, I learned to cook initially as a vegan.

Much like ydnew, in 90, sometimes the fake meat is just makes for a nice meal. But yeah, sometimes it's about trying to make something familiar, without using meat. So we, as a family, used to make 'steak and kidney pie', because it's something we liked, but we'd make it with soya protein, rather than beef. And it was OK. It wasn't as good as a proper pie, made by someone who can cook, with good beef and good kidneys. But it was better than a cheap supermarket steak and kidney pie.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 10:12 AM
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But it was better than a cheap supermarket steak and kidney pie.

I stopped eating those when I realized I couldn't tell the steak from the kidney.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 10:14 AM
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re: 103

Yeah. We used chestnut mushrooms for the kidneys [which work really well], a gravy made with vegetable stock and [iirc] a little miso, and soya protein as the 'steak'.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 10:16 AM
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102 is a good point, and shows how I was being unfair in 98 with the indifferent part. While the ideal of a particularly dish may be hard to achieve without meat products, a fresh made veggie version will easily best frozen aisle fare and often any other version made without care.


Posted by: Dee Lurking | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 10:18 AM
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See, we didn't even have miso where I was growing up.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 10:18 AM
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re: 106

We had to cycle to the small health-food shop in the nearest large town to get it. This was early to mid 80s. Nowadays, you'd find it in every medium-sized or larger supermarket. Probably more than one variety, even.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 10:20 AM
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re 104: I bet a really rich dark mushroom stock could be the start of a good pie.


Posted by: Dee Lurking | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 10:20 AM
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The soaking liquid that comes off dried mushrooms would be a good starting point.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 10:21 AM
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I still don't get it and suspect it has far more to do with lack of cooking skills than particular mouth feel.

This is the most serious of all insults in the Unfogged moral hierarchy, I believe.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 10:22 AM
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Just on a mushroom thing, one of the few things we made that I still get a total nostalgic craving for sometimes.

Make a really rich, strong tasting mushroom curry. Reduce some mushrooms right down to make the base all umami-laden, then a load of more lightly cooked mushrooms for the texture and meatiness. Lots of turmeric, ginger and garlic.

Hollow out a marrow, stuff the marrow with the mushroom curry, and then bake. Totally delicious.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 10:24 AM
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Googling, quite similar to this, except with stewed/sautéed mushrooms, not lamb:

http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=5967.0


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 10:26 AM
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I'm guessing that marrow in 111.last is a type of squash and not a bone?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 10:30 AM
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111 sounds delicious!


Posted by: Dee Lurking | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 10:32 AM
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I still don't get it and suspect it has far more to do with lack of cooking skills than particular mouth feel.

Oh, eyeroll. Vegetables are infinite in variety of flavor, but not so much texture. Sometimes throwing a dense chewy thing into the mix is nice. Tofu, seitan, etc. -- all lovely in their turn. Incidentally, Field Roast Smoked Apple Sage "Sausages" are the bomb -- perhaps if we called them artisanally hand-stretched dumplings that would be ok?


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 10:42 AM
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I've missed lamb brains for years now, but rather than try and recreate them I just eat something else. If you want to eat mushrooms, go for it! Mushroom pie can be an excellent thing. The examples here of recherché East Asian specialized dishes (see Chinese Buddhist ref above, elaborate pressed mushroom dish, etc.) are actually proving my point. Except for the "soya protein as 'steak'", just sounds nasty. Rest of mushroom pie recipe theoretically unobjectionable.

And i have sympathy for those without cooking skills, if you don't pick them up as a young adult (when most likely to have the time and energy) it can be daunting to do so later. Especially if you have kids. Hasn't hg made strides on this front, rather heroically?


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 10:43 AM
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I'm pretty sure lamb brains are vegetarian. Sheep aren't very smart.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 10:49 AM
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116: I think the point I was wandering around with the Chinese Buddhist dishes etc., is that sometimes constraints are an amazing driver for any creative process (c.f. 12 tone compositions, poetic forms, etc.) and that great work under constraints can transcend the obvious form of those constraints, leaving you with something new and special. This is uncontroversial art, I don't think we can reject its value out of hand in cookery.


Posted by: Dee Lurking | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 10:57 AM
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I can't tell if dairy queen is being incredibly patronizing, if there's a bit of a "not all fake meat products" dynamic going on, or both.

I believe that the majority of people cooking with meat substitutes are doing so out of laziness -- it allows them to make something that fits a familiar template even when that combination may not be as tasty as a dish that was intended to be vegetarian from the beginning. But, of course, there are also times when it's just a tasty and handy ingredient (I remember my brother making me eggs with Morningstar Farms veggie sausage patties and Mama Lil's hot peppers and there was something magical about that combination -- I've had Morningstar farms products at other times and they've never tasted as good as they did with the peppers.)


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 11:00 AM
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I went to one of those Chinese fake meat vegetarian restaurants once. Once.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 11:00 AM
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I dunno, I use meat substitute sometimes and we do eat meat. It's less greasy and sometimes meat grosses me out.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 11:01 AM
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119: perhaps also a "fake meat product" vs. "vegetarian protein product" thing going on, the former being a smallish subset of the latter in my mind.


Posted by: Dee Lurking | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 11:05 AM
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Except for the "soya protein as 'steak'", just sounds nasty.

Soy protein subbing in for ground meat in something saucy IME works really very well. Cheap ground meat doesn't taste like much, and the difference between spaghetti sauce or chili with ground meat versus soy protein is pretty small. (This is, admittedly, complicated by the fact that I'm not a big fan of ground meat in things like that. I like meat in pieces big enough to chew.)

(Newt made a belated Mother's Day dinner on Saturday that would break your heart. Nothing complicated, a steak in a citrus marinade, served way, way rare, asparagus with lemon butter, and fries. He's really got the fries down, though, and the steak was a thing of beauty.)(I may have taught him standards of 'rare' that are slightly outside the realm of socially acceptable, in that it's pretty much raw but browned on the outside. I should warn him about that before he cooks for non-family members.)


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 11:24 AM
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That does sound good. For years I always ordered steak medium until I realised that the common factor in great steaks I'd had was that the chef had ignored me and just given me very-rare-but-heavily-browned.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 11:28 AM
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123: If it's still cold in the middle, that's blue or very rare, otherwise you are still in typical rare territory (after a 3-5 min rest)


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 11:35 AM
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I wouldn't have called it cold in the middle, but a distinct notch closer to raw than I've ever been served in a steakhouse ordering a rare steak.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 11:44 AM
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"I can't tell if dairy queen is being incredibly patronizing" - can see how I'm getting people's knickers in a twist but suspect much of that is due to electronic medium. Am an enthusiastic but probably by many lights very picky eater. Worked in food and wine businesses from age of 16 until about a decade ago, except, somewhat oddly while I was living in France. Have worked in kitchens from very low to very high, have cut huge numbers of fish, baked and pastry made my brains out, bought and sold cheese, worked a line, waited tables and flogged wine near and far. Have many many close friends in SF bay area food industry.

So - puzzled by "fake meat" because snob? Maybe. But if you don't like ground meat in your spaghetti sauce, why not just - make it without? Not as if you're likely to pitch over from protein deficiency.


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 11:47 AM
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127: Honestly, the lack of personal pronouns also contributes to it.


Posted by: Josh | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 11:48 AM
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Phone typing and not very good at it.


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 11:49 AM
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126: Apparently, if you want something really rare, you can order it "Pittsburgh rare." This may only work in Pittsburgh.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 11:52 AM
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"I can't tell if dairy queen is being incredibly patronizing" - can see how I'm getting people's knickers in a twist but suspect much of that is due to electronic medium.

Also the part where you jump from puzzlement to expressing sympathy for the poor saps who clearly were never taught to cook.


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 11:54 AM
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But if you don't like ground meat in your spaghetti sauce, why not just - make it without? Not as if you're likely to pitch over from protein deficiency.

I'm not crazy about ground meat in my spaghetti sauce, but there are people who really like it. It's a different texture, and protein has a flavor (I guess that's umami? I think?). For those people, if they have some reason not to eat meat, soy protein is a surprisingly accurate substitute, IMO.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 11:54 AM
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can see how I'm getting people's knickers in a twist but suspect much of that is due to electronic medium.

I suspect so. To me, reading the thread, it felt like you drifted from, "X isn't to my taste, or isn't how I approach food" to "people are doing it wrong."

Looking for specific quotes I would point at "lack of cooking skills" followed by "Rest of mushroom pie recipe theoretically unobjectionable."

I believe it was friendly joshing, but "patronizing" seemed like a possible interpretation as well.


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 11:54 AM
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Somewhere in the area between friendly joshing and moderate trolling.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 11:58 AM
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Phone typing and not very good at it.

Yeah, trying to have anything more than a very brief conversation on a phone keyboard is a recipe (see what I did there?) for bad feelings.


Posted by: Josh | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:02 PM
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Have any of us never seen seen a violin?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:03 PM
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On phone, or would stir shit.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:08 PM
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Joshing meant, puzzlement and sympathy sincere. Really does seem difficult to get the cooking skills thing sorted outside a surprisingly narrow age range, without devoting monomaniacal time/energy.


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:11 PM
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138 really is priceless trolling. Brava.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:13 PM
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I dunno. I think I've learned to cook passably well in the past three years, without devoting monomaniacal time/energy.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:13 PM
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What is this business about boiling vegetables before you put them in a pasty? I've never done that.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:15 PM
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Joshing meant, puzzlement and sympathy sincere.

Yes, but, you see, preemptive sympathy for a deficit you are simply presuming that people have is rude++.


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:15 PM
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134 should be mouseover text.


Posted by: snarkout | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:22 PM
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137 is my default email sig on my phone.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:22 PM
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nm, shit stirring itself.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:26 PM
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Have many many close friends in SF bay area food industry.

Enough to swing a reservation at State Bird for a specific date toward the end of next month?


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:30 PM
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Maybe! Have swung FL recently... romance intended?


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:36 PM
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142. Let's all help dq learn to talk to strangers without pissing them off. She hasn't exactly asked for advice, but most likely she would welcome some tips.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:39 PM
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140 is typical, 138 only true for very high levels of "skills", and somewhat specialized.

cooking, like many activities, is one where if you are starting from near zero you can make leaps and bounds of progress with a smallish effort and some real focus, plus some good resources (books are fine).

Yes, you will rapidly reach a plateau, and to go beyond that will require a different level of effort and mentoring.

In my opinion this plateau is well beyond the point where you will mostly view restaurants as a means for convenience, and rarely as an improvement in meal quality.


Posted by: Dee Lurking | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:40 PM
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I am too lazy to read the linked article, but have a hobbyhorse to go out for a trot, to wit: modern commercial bread technology raises bread much faster, probably by optimizing for one yeast action (and certainly by breeding wheat for the new process). Long-raised bread, like anything fermented, is slightly pre-digested and probably has some extra good stuff (synthesized by the microbes). Anyway, it tastes better and I feel fine even when I gorge myself on it, which is my personal dietary rule.

I once got lectured on how USians eat too much refined carbs by a dinner guest who had been present while we ground the flour for our dinner. The only failure so far in our renovated kitchen is that we haven't figured out how to reinstall the grain mill -- when we had a hideous, damaged laminate counter, we happily drilled straight through it, but we'd regret that now and it needs something nearly as heavy. Singer iron treadle base, close but not enough. The practical thing to do is attach it to a recumbent bike, but that takes a lot of room. Hmph.


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:43 PM
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149 cont: well to be fair, convenience + things-i-can't-do-at-home. But the latter is something you can adjust if you wish.


Posted by: Dee Lurking | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:44 PM
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Look, no one should waste a good meat sauce by pouring it over spaghetti, but what is this bullshit about meat flavor not mattering in a meat sauce?

I respect ethical vegetarianism, because it leaves more animals around for me to eat, but let's not get too crazy with these delusions in re fake meat. I wonder if people who like fake meat cook meat to the point of having no taste, and then only eat it with a shit-ton of other crap with it. I guess if the only time you eat meat is as a texture enhancer in a crap filled potato burrito then maybe, but then I feel sorry for you as a carnivore.

Why not just have slabs o' fat on a bed of kale, and be awesome? Why be lame?


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:45 PM
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People - I give you 150.2. If that doesn't trump whatever impression you've gathered from me don't know what would!


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:47 PM
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The only failure so far in our renovated kitchen is that we haven't figured out how to reinstall the grain mill...

Humblebrag contest!


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:48 PM
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Nope, not at all. 150.2 is "I go to moderately insane lengths to make food I like." As someone who does all sorts of moderately insane things, that's not even a little annoying. What you've been saying has come off as "I don't understand why people would eat 'fake meat' unless they were hopelessly incompetent or misguided about how to make reasonable food." Which is completely different.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:49 PM
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You people know what Seitan and Tempeh are made out of, right? Seitan is literally made from gluten and Tempeh is estrogen-filled soy product.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:50 PM
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Still waiting for Halford to post his triglyceride levels.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:50 PM
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152: I'm an enthusiastic carnivore, but meat sauce really tastes mostly like tomato, not like meat. Before you were enlightened, did you ever try tomato sauce with soy protein? I find it pretty convincing.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:51 PM
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I mean if you want to eat a tasteless estrogen-filled fake meat product that gives you man-boobs, be my guest. I believe in freedom for all.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:52 PM
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156. Neither of them are watered with tears of suffering from other sentient beings, you sicko.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:53 PM
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Why would my regular boobs turn into man-boobs?


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:53 PM
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You people know what Seitan and Tempeh are made out of, right? Seitan is literally made from gluten and Tempeh is estrogen-filled soy product.

WHAT NO WAY STOP THIS BUS IMMEDIATELY


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:53 PM
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tasteless estrogen-filled fake

My god, the misogyny.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:54 PM
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160: They could be, if somebody put in some effort.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:56 PM
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Meat/meat-free aside, 116's pause to recognize heebie-geebie's heroic efforts at cookery should be noted.


Posted by: Lady Catherine de Bourgh | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:57 PM
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161: Perhaps you should check your cis-privilege, Heebs.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:58 PM
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158. I think maybe you're doing it wrong. Bolognese is mostly meat, hint of tomato. Red sauce is mostly tomato, no meat. They are basically completely different, taking their average is like a ketchup-flavored taco or something.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:58 PM
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I'm never one to turn down recognition of my heroic strides and effort.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 12:59 PM
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158 -- I used to be an enthusiastic eater/maker of meat ragu. I admit I never tried to substitute soy, but one of the things I liked about it was a distinctive, strong, meat flavor. Also, fat.

161 -- through weakness, of course.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:00 PM
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Maybe! Have swung FL recently... romance intended?

A birthday, even!

but meat sauce really tastes mostly like tomato, not like meat.

Must never've had my meat sauce. Bay-bee.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:00 PM
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(Though the serious answer is because of all the math you've exposed your ladyboobs to over the years.)


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:00 PM
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Topless grading?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:01 PM
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They do seem droopier than they used to.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:01 PM
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Annie Thorisdottir has powerful, tempeh-free boobs.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:02 PM
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170: yay! Despite being an apparently obnoxious snot and execrably rude person, I will see what I can do.


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:06 PM
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The person who invents fake boobs that can shrunk or enlarged in situ is going to be very rich. Is this a materials science problem or a mechanical engineering problem? I guess we'll have to wait and see.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:06 PM
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I didn't mean to cut off conversation, but she does, in addition to having a last name that means "daughter of Thor" or maybe "daughter of Thoris." Put that in your potato burrito and smoke it.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:06 PM
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Dairy Queen, you're fine, but you tend to adopt the Voice of Experience when talking about food or parenting. Women are sensitive, and they get annoyed at things like that.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:08 PM
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I'm coming to the conclusion that I don't get in any better shape with exercise. I have one gear. I mean, I still get health benefits, but it's a real thing - people who don't get better performance from getting in shape. I think I'm one of them.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:08 PM
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176. Isn't there already a named subgenre of Japanese animation devoted to this very idea?


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:08 PM
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179 is me also.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:09 PM
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The person who invents fake boobs that can shrunk or enlarged in situ is going to be very rich.

See, this is one of the things that appeals to me about skipping reconstructive surgery. Flat to exercise. This blouse will gape at the buttons unless I'm very flat, but this dress will look better if I look stacked. Done.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:09 PM
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156 Seitan is literally made from gluten

And if you aren't afflicted with celiac this should bother you because...?


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:10 PM
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Though I have to admit I really would have preferred if it was literally made from Satan.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:10 PM
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179, 181: While I'm tempted to believe this, I mostly think it's because I just don't generally work very hard.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:11 PM
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I don't feel like I get in much better shape with moderate/reasonable exercise. But if I don't do it, I definitely notice three weeks later. Exercising my usual amount doesn't make me feel like I am getting in shape, but if I don't do it for a few weeks, I notice when I take the stairs at work. I definitely notice declines, if not improvements.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:11 PM
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fake boobs that can shrunk or enlarged in situ

Surely the technology behind inflatable penile implants could be put to use here.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:11 PM
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185: Quiet you.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:11 PM
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Oh yeah, I can get out of shape, no problem.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:12 PM
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186 is largely true for me after a certain point. Also it is incredible what a difference going 4-5 days a week to the gym makes versus 2-3.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:13 PM
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I also have exposed my ladyboobs to math, though not quite enough.

LizardBreath's spin on my post is characteristally generous, but it could be a humblebrag. I can raise it; avoid labor-saving devices and you, too, might be puzzled by the assumption that a healthy diet is a weight-reducing one. Also, I lived in Portland before it was cool. Last comment is meant as a hint that I'm mostly kidding; not kidding insofar as this has worked for me, but certainly not assuming that it would be worth it for everyone. Unless you really like cornbread and live too far from the South for storebought cornmeal to be reliably fresh.

Belatedly, I agree with Minivet that lots of the US didn't get everything they wanted to eat for most of the 20th c. I only had a handwavy argument from cookbooks and household management though; very, very concerned with keeping scraps and reusing them, and making small portions more acceptable by including broths and pickles and other teases in the meal. Carbs and lard had started getting cheap by, oh, 1880?, but lard on crackers wasn't *desirable* for some considerable time. I suppose that's an argument for blaming `hyperpalatability' research.


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:13 PM
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Have some of you people switched to a low carb diet of lead paint chips? There's no actual mystery to solve, here. If you like hamburgers, but for some reason you feel like you can no longer eat hamburgers, then eating something that reminds you of hamburgers is not the most mysterious species of human behavior ever encountered. When Proust eats the madeleine, was this deeply puzzling to you, simply because it's just a cookie?


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:14 PM
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Also it is incredible what a difference going 4-5 days a week to the gym makes versus 2-3.

Really? I've been very strict about 3x/week, and I figured since I felt mildly sore and tired on the other days, I was probably achieving what I needed to achieve.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:15 PM
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I also have exposed my ladyboobs to math, though not quite enough.

AGREED. MESSAGE ME, CLEW.


Posted by: Math | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:15 PM
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192.last: Is Proust where we get the expression, "What do you want? A cookie?"


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:16 PM
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I ate at a fake meat Chinese restaurant in Manhattan that was amazing. I got dragged there by my vegetarian brother-in-law, and I didn't know what to expect.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:18 PM
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Have I been talking about jumping rope? It's been a bad spring for exercise; work has been stressy and Buck's been traveling a lot, and both of those things make it hard for me to run (because I have no commitment. It's not that it would have been literally impossible for me to run, it's that when life is disarranged, I really don't want to.) But a couple of sessions of fifteen minutes of jumprope intervals a week, and I'm less out of shape (measured by getting winded going up stairs and such) than I should be for how little I've been exercising.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:19 PM
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At Crossfit my rule is that I jump rope until I start to pee, and then I go on to the next thing.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:19 PM
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Also it is incredible what a difference going 4-5 days a week to the gym makes versus 2-3.

So true, but I can only give that much of my life to a sport for stretches at a time.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:20 PM
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Oh god, the pump is in the scrotum.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:20 PM
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195: Yes, but the original French translates something closer to "What do you want? Total physical, spiritual and sexual satisfaction in cookie form?" Prudish, uptight Americans dropped everything but the cookie.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:20 PM
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I am still kind of terrible at it, of course -- I'm going pretty slow, and I only have about a 50-50 shot of making it through any given 1 minute interval without tripping.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:22 PM
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At Crossfit my rule is that I jump rope until I start to pee, and then I go on to the next thing.

Pooping>


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:23 PM
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I assume 200 is the "snap your hips" of jumping rope, but I can't quite figure out the mechanism.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:23 PM
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200: Yeah, that was the big drawback for the Reebok Pump basketball shoes too.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:23 PM
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Sometimes I'm glad that html cuts off everything after a less-than sign.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:24 PM
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David Foster Wallace had an essay about going to some porn trade show? or convention? Where he met a porn star with adjustable implants controlled by valves in her armpits, IIRC. Sounded terrifying to me, like the sort of thing that would never quite heal properly, and would always be sort of irritated.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:24 PM
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204: It will make a lot more sense after your ladyboobs turn into manboobs.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:24 PM
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193 -- I hate to say it. I feel like 3/week only maintains, at least 4x/week to improve. This may be a psychological thing because someone told me this, but I think it's true. I usually have a hard time making it in more than 3x/week.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:24 PM
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209: I do have stupid 'win the lottery' fantasies about being able to literally drop all my responsibilities and spend six months or a year doing nothing useful but getting in shape, just to see if it would work -- nothing but exercise and sleep, with someone competent telling me what to do next. The kind of thing actors do when they put on thirty pounds of muscle in four months for a role, although not particularly bodybuilding focused.

If given the opportunity, I probably wouldn't actually do this, but I do think about it.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:28 PM
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Halford's right (on this narrow matter). 3/week to maintain, 4/week to improve, 5/week to compete (maybe 6/week, but you've got to start thinking about food and rest at 6/week).


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:29 PM
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Dang.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:31 PM
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210: that was a large part of my plan for the last year. Didn't turn out that way at all.


Posted by: Josh | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:33 PM
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Eh, don't bother. Exercise 3x/week, appreciate that you can carry a kid up a flight of stairs with groceries in the other arm and say it is good enough.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:35 PM
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210: that was a large part of my plan for the last year. Didn't turn out that way at all.

See comment 19 . . .


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:35 PM
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211: That makes no sense. If you're not in shape, you don't even have to exercise once a week to maintain.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:36 PM
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I do have stupid 'win the lottery' fantasies about being able to literally drop all my responsibilities and spend six months or a year doing nothing useful but getting in shape,

I kind of have this opportunity right now for the next nine months. OTOH, I'm a baby-factory.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:38 PM
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Right now I'm training 3 times weekly, with 3 soccer games (two short-sided, one full-field) on top of that. My skills have definitely gotten better, but it's impossible to tell how much better my fitness has gotten 'cause I'm still playing against people 5-15 years younger than me for the most part. I definitely haven't lost any weight, though.


Posted by: Josh | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:39 PM
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I've been displacement-exercising while not finishing my goddamn diss, with the result that I am nearly as fit as I've ever been* but the fact fills me with shame and self-loathing. The exercise is still necessary to get to sleep at all, so I think a net win, but oy.


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:39 PM
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Do you have any objective things you do consistently to measure yourself against? I live at the top of a step street that's eleven flights tall, and the difference between as out of shape as I ever get and the vaguely better shape I'm in sometimes is the difference between walking up it without thinking about it too much when I'm in shape versus getting to the top panting and with my heart racing. I don't notice being fitter when I am, but those stairs give me a way to check where I am in my range.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:43 PM
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220: no, and that's something I need to rectify. I'm falling down on the "measurable" part of "give yourself concrete measurable goals to accomplish anything" formula.


Posted by: Josh | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:46 PM
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Does training 3 times weekly not include something for baseline comparison?

I am very very mildly tempted to find an oar and do my college crew team's evil test. (Balance oar on outstretched hands as long as you can.)


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:48 PM
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LB, you don't run the steps? That sounds like the most convenient ever form of intense exercise.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:49 PM
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I have occasionally in the past, but not as a rule, no. (A) I'm just not that committed, (B) they're in bad shape -- a lot of broken or tilted steps. Not a problem to walk up, but running up them I'd be afraid of tripping and killing myself as soon as I was a little tired and (C) right now they're actually under construction, so they're only half as wide as they should be. Also, infested with skunks, but that's usually not a serious problem.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:52 PM
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Infested with skunks is a wild overstatement. I see a skunk maybe once a week, tops.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:53 PM
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You only need to run up suddenly on one skunk.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:54 PM
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I have a 2.5 mile jogging route that ranges from tiring to easy. Every 6 months at crossfit they have one rep max week, and I keep track of my (virtually unchanging) one rep maxes.i


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:55 PM
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They seem to be freakishly calm skunks. I see them pretty frequently, and there are a lot of dogs in the neighborhood, and I haven't heard a single story about a dog getting skunked. You can smell skunk in the park sometimes, but not frequently, and not all that intensely.

We have Zen skunks.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:56 PM
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Zunks.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:57 PM
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That makes sense. I was wondering why you'd settled on jumproping when the steps are right there, but if they aren't safe for running then jumproping sounds good.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:58 PM
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I'm liking the elliptical now that I have a gym. The apparatus puts me in a continuous loop so I don't feel like stopping every second starting 15 minutes in.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 1:59 PM
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Steps will fuck your knees up, especially if you run.


Posted by: David the Unfogged Commenter | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 2:01 PM
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I've been away from the gymn for coming up on three weeks and it's really beginning to show in my mood. Exercise is most certainly an anti-depressant for me. I just got shot in the spine (ok, near the spine) with steroids to treat the back pain that's been keeping me away, so hopefully I'll return this week. Maybe the steroids will help me buff up. Or just give me roid rage.


Posted by: togolosh | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 2:01 PM
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There's also a 'just not that committed' thing going on, even if they were in good shape. The full height of the stairs is kind of long for an intense interval (for me), but I'd feel silly running two-thirds of the way up and then back down. (Also, I get embarrassed exercising visibly in public. Jogging in a park, I look reasonably sane. Running stairs past people who are carrying groceries home, though, I feel like an idiot.)


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 2:02 PM
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Running stairs past people who are carrying groceries home, though, I feel like an idiot.

Maybe wear a mask while doing it?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 2:05 PM
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225: Compare the title of this post.


Posted by: widget | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 2:06 PM
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222: not really. I talked with my trainer about doing a timed mile to track my progress, but then I got hurt and let it drop. I should pick it up again. (The training is kettlebell-based, and every session is a different set of exercises, so tracking progress from week to week is hard.)


Posted by: Josh | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 2:07 PM
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And a cape! Speaking of masks and capes, read a case this morning with a gratuitous reference to Gorgeous George.

The sciatica really limits what I can do at the gym, much to the frustration of the really nice trainer I see every couple of months. She is ambitious for me, while I don't mind doing the same thing or close to it for yonks and yonks. My inability to tolerate squats seems to depress her, while happy to toil away at the butt machine. Except for when there is a sudden craze for it. I assume these fads for particular equipment are driven by some magazine publishing a routine, but geez they can be annoying.


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 2:13 PM
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150: ok I feel good now about eating my sourdough wholemeal spelt bread. It didn't rise all that well but is tasty.


Posted by: emir | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 2:15 PM
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So note which kettlebell exercise is most heinous now, and set a reminder to do it again a month from now? Would your trainer actually be against that? (Let it drop. Pick it up again.)

If steps are so damaging, why are the too-steep-for-a-street public stairs near me so popular with runners? Maybe they're firefighters who specifically have to do steps. Maybe it's never the same runner for a whole year.



Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 2:20 PM
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Why would steps be damaging? Maybe downstairs, for shin splints?


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 2:22 PM
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Deleted inadvertently from 238.1:

George was apparently an egg rancher. Unclear whether this was prior to, concurrent with or following masked and caped gorgeousness.


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 2:22 PM
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Risk of falling and breaking your kneecaps?


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 2:24 PM
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You know what I find super fun is trail-running, especially something sort of scrappy. Speaking of falling and breaking your knee-caps.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 2:28 PM
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231: which gym did you go with?


Posted by: Josh | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 2:47 PM
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245: The one closest to me, on Gr/and, defranchised from Gold's a year or three back.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 3:38 PM
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Something I found that surprised me a lot, when I was trying to eat less meat, was that Tofurkey sausage, very particularly, is great as an omelette component.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 3:39 PM
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Where he met a porn star with adjustable implants controlled by valves in her armpits, IIRC. Sounded terrifying to me, like the sort of thing that would never quite heal properly, and would always be sort of irritated.

"What, you're inflating me again? Sheesh."


Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 3:40 PM
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Should be noted that the coauthor of the OP article is vice president of research at the organization that Taubes cofounded.... so it's not a surprise that Taubes is approvingly cited.


Posted by: Klug | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 3:52 PM
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210: Yeah, I accidentally took 4.5 months off and other than a half-assed start at couch to 5K what mostly happened is I ate cookies until my shirts didn't fit. Don't fit. I'm a week off sugar and alcohol right now, though judging by the usual, it'll take a while to lose weight. That said, I'm sleeping better. Not sure quite what the relationship is.


Posted by: Mister Smearcase | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 9:00 PM
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I grew oddly fond of the skunks of that neighborhood, possibly because the first time I saw one it was burrowing into an exploded bag of garbage and I was like "yes, this is a summary of my feelings about the neighborhood." The second time I saw one I said aloud, in an unusually sweet tone, "hello, darling skunk!" because cute animals make me stupid.


Posted by: Mister Smearcase | Link to this comment | 05-19-14 9:11 PM
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