It's okay to binge, as long as it's low-cal!

keriamon · Post by **keriamon** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 1:21 pm

http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/health/t ... e-2516462/

New low-calorie pseudo food allows you to eat constantly without gaining weight! (As long as you only eat the low-cal pseudo food.)

Sorry, I'd rather nom an entire 1/2 gallon of Blue Bell's pistacio ice cream once a calendar quarter than eat faux-cream every weekend (or night).

Something Anne Barone mentions in her series of books (Chic & Slim) is that when she was a child, she was all about how much candy bar she could get for her money--quantity, not quality, was what it was about. After spending years in France and former French colonies, she's the opposite: better a small amount of something good than a large amount of something awful. I have to agree.

Who Me? · Post by **Who Me?** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 2:52 pm

Excuse me please, I have to go bang my forehead against the wall.

milliem · Post by **milliem** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 4:01 pm

'We feel like a serving is an entire pint'

Really?!! Since when??

I'm definitely a quality over quantity girl - or if it's low quality I don't automatically think that that means I can eat MORE of it. Why would I want to eat more of something that's not that great?

Such damaging attitudes to food, makes me sad

Nicest of the Damned · Post by **Nicest of the Damned** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 5:07 pm

One problem I can see with this is that you get used to eating a pint of Arctic Dream every night. Then you find yourself in a situation where there is no Arctic Dream available, but there is regular ice cream (maybe a restaurant, or someone else's house). Now you've got a choice between eating a pint of regular ice cream or having none or much less than you're used to, which will probably make you feel deprived. Feeling deprived can lead to bad things, including binge eating.

I will try the Arctic Dream, if I can find it. I used to like ice milk as long as it came in an appealing flavor, so I'm not terribly discriminating when it comes to ice cream. If it comes in cookie dough or peanut butter flavor, and the texture isn't totally revolting, I'll probably like it. But I don't think I will encourage myself to eat a whole pint of it per sitting.

DaveMc · Post by **DaveMc** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 9:02 pm

Y'know, it's almost as if the food industry does not have the public's best interests at heart ...

Food designed to support you in being as thoroughly gluttonous as possible -- it's like the anti-NoS!

Desert Rat · Post by **Desert Rat** » Fri Jul 29, 2011 1:44 am

I've tried Artic Zero - it's as expensive as super-premium ice cream and quite tasteless. I'd rather have a small scoop of the real thing and abandon "our national sense of gluttony!"

DaveMc · Post by **DaveMc** » Fri Jul 29, 2011 1:03 pm

I had to look up what a "pint" is, by the way. For anyone else in the same boat, it's apparently 473 mL (in the U.S.) -- nearly half a litre! So a 2 L tub of ice cream is just over four servings? Yikes.

[EDIT: Unless, of course, they mean the "dry pint", which would be 551 mL. Ice cream is a bit of a grey area, in terms of whether it would be considered wet or dry. My non-fellow Americans, may I make one tiny suggestion: metric. I'm just sayin'.]

ThomsonsPier · Post by **ThomsonsPier** » Fri Jul 29, 2011 2:09 pm

A pint is 567.5ml over here (minus an acceptable head).

Metric, indeed.

keriamon · Post by **keriamon** » Fri Jul 29, 2011 3:08 pm

I had to look up what a "pint" is

It's the amount of beer in a glass in the U.K. or Ireland.

Come now, we Americans aren't the only ones who still occassionally use the Queen's measurements.

Linguisticsgirl · Post by **Linguisticsgirl** » Fri Jul 29, 2011 3:17 pm

I'm not from the US and I couldn't recognise most metric units if they jumped up and bit me.

I can tell you that a pint is a measurement that in icecream is too much and in beer is just right

Joyofsix · Post by **Joyofsix** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 9:19 pm

Linguisticsgirl wrote:I'm not from the US and I couldn't recognise most metric units if they jumped up and bit me.

I can tell you that a pint is a measurement that in icecream is too much and in beer is just right

DaveMc · Post by **DaveMc** » Sun Jul 31, 2011 8:29 pm

keriamon wrote:Come now, we Americans aren't the only ones who still occassionally use the Queen's measurements.

I asked the Queen last week, and she said it's OK to start using metric. "It's just simpler," she said.

However, I don't actually care what units people use. Sometimes I put on my Exasperated Scientist hat for a while, but deep down, I secretly enjoy the fact that there are these baroque systems of measurement still out there in the world, adding flavour to discussions like these.

I was under the impression that the U.K. was pretty metricated, with the exceptions of the pint of beer and stones for human weight -- but it sounds like I'm wrong? In Canada, I'd say that human height and weight are about the last remaining widespread uses of imperial units: people still refer to heights in feet-and-inches and weights in pounds, quite often.

The two-litre soda bottle will gradually convince people in the U.S. (and apparently the U.K.) that nothing terrible will happen to them if they use metric units, so it's only a matter of time ...

sheepish · Post by **sheepish** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 7:24 am

DaveMc wrote:I was under the impression that the U.K. was pretty metricated, with the exceptions of the pint of beer and stones for human weight -- but it sounds like I'm wrong?

It's a mixed bag in the UK and depends a bit on your age. As a 30 year old British person, I would use stones/pounds for weight, feet/inches for human height, pints for beer, miles for distance (and mph for speed in a car) but celsius for temperature (I don't understand farenheit AT ALL), cm/m for non-human-height measurements like for furniture/curtains/etc, grams/kg for food weights, ml/litres for measuring liquids for a recipe or whatever.

idontknow · Post by **idontknow** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 8:11 am

I think we look fairly metricated in the UK because most measurements on display in shops are metric. However, we do a lot of converting in our heads while shopping and I still ask for 'a pound of' things in shops with no trouble.

As a 40 something British person I tend to use imperial measurements for most things except temperature and the odd recipe. My husband (same age)- who is a builder and an ex research chemist (don't ask!) - uses metric as he says it is much more accurate at smaller scales. However, he always drinks pints

My dad (in his 70s) - is completely imperial - even in small scale modelling - which he spends a lot of time on.
My kids (in their teens) are more or less metric - except for their own weight and height where they still use imperial.
So I suppose this means that in time the imperial will disappear - a society in transition is a good description!

Who Me? · Post by **Who Me?** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 12:49 pm

I think Americans regard the metric system as just another bad idea (like environmentalism, and equal rights for women) that the liberals tried to force on us during the 1970s.

"Thank goodness those ideas never took hold" seems to be the prevailing view.

Too solid flesh · Post by **Too solid flesh** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 7:58 pm

Calculations of volume, area etc are so much easier in metric. I'm of an age where my early schooling was in imperial, and later schooling was metric, and the arithmatic became gloriously easy after metrication. I can remember being taught rods, poles and perches etc back in the olden days.

Having said that, ounces are great for small children learning to cook.

Who Me? · Post by **Who Me?** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 9:53 pm

I work in construction, and regret our nation's bull-headedness in not adopting the metric system.

Quick! Multiply 4 feet seven and 5/32 of an inch by seven. Uuuuugh!

Multiples of ten, people!!!! So simple that you can count on your fingers.

milliem · Post by **milliem** » Tue Aug 02, 2011 6:20 am

What really confuses me is cup measurements in cooking. They are impossible to convert!! Do I pack the ingredients in tightly? Float them in loosely? Will all hell break loose if the top isn't perfectly flat? ARGH!

(Mind you all the different measurements in the world wouldn't make a pint of ice cream any more necessary to eat in one go.... and clearly that volume of ice cream is too much no matter what you call it!)

Nicest of the Damned · Post by **Nicest of the Damned** » Tue Aug 02, 2011 12:07 pm

milliem wrote:What really confuses me is cup measurements in cooking. They are impossible to convert!! Do I pack the ingredients in tightly? Float them in loosely? Will all hell break loose if the top isn't perfectly flat? ARGH!

With a few exceptions, in cooking, generally not. Baking is another story, and there are dishes that are that fussy, but most aren't.

Blithe Morning · Post by **Blithe Morning** » Tue Aug 02, 2011 7:11 pm

Millie, I pretty much weigh all my ingredients when backing. Flour is 120 grams per cup. Sugar is 200. (Actually it's 196 but who's quibbling?). I forget what milk is off the top of my head, I have it written down somewheres.

Nicest of the Damned · Post by **Nicest of the Damned** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 5:38 pm

keriamon wrote:http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/health/t ... e-2516462/

New low-calorie pseudo food allows you to eat constantly without gaining weight! (As long as you only eat the low-cal pseudo food.)

Sorry, I'd rather nom an entire 1/2 gallon of Blue Bell's pistacio ice cream once a calendar quarter than eat faux-cream every weekend (or night).

But which of these options makes more money for the food company? That's what they care about. They do not care if you get fat. Of course they're going to try to convince you to consume more of their product. That means you buy more of it, and that's how they make their money.

If you eat a half gallon of ice cream once a quarter, that's 4 pints, so you're eating 16 pints of ice cream a year. If you eat a pint of pseudo ice cream every weekend, you're eating 52 pints a year. If the profit margin on each pint is the same, the ice cream company would far prefer the latter to the former. You might be better off with the former, but they wouldn't.

Food and beverage companies pretty much only advocate moderation or consuming less when they think they might face restrictions on the sale or advertising of their products if they don't.

Everyday Systems

It's okay to binge, as long as it's low-cal!

It's okay to binge, as long as it's low-cal!

Re: It's okay to binge, as long as it's low-cal!