A recent story in the StarTribune caught my eye. Columnist John Tevlin goes in depth on the family feud going on just down the road from us in St. Louis Park where we’ve seen Thanh Do (local restauranteur Thom Pham’s cash cow) close and reopen across the street in a larger space; and his adoptive sisters reopen the original location under the name “Wok In The Park”.
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I’m not usually a big fan of these advice type articles. I’m of the opinion that diet advice boils down to the following phrase: Eat less. Work out more. That said, I think this is worth a look, both because of the startling badness of some of these concoctions, and the clever imagery with which they’re presented. So go ahead, have a look:
I go to the downtown Target once or twice a week to stock the work fridge with healthy (or relatively speaking ‘healthier’) snacks. I’ve worked my ass off (almost literally) over the last two years, and I enjoy being fitter, happier, more productive. So yeah, nothing too crazy. Stock up on some yogurt, milk, granola bars. Try to pack my own lunch most days, and if not, find a nice-looking sandwich to bring home.
Which is exactly why I’m baffled by my instincts each and every time I pass the rack of 99 cent bags of Doritos. I’m a rational adult. I can pretty quickly make the call that a bag of Doritos is the epitome of ‘empty calories’. If you were to put a Dorito section into the food pyramid, it would be in the group that represents the slave labor that built the food pyramid. Still, I want to buy and eat them, and it’s a fairly intense wanting.
So I resist, and resist some more. But I can empathize with people who just can’t seem to stop eating [problem food x]. Stay strong, friends, you can do it.
Last weekend I was enjoying a nice continental breakfast1 at a Holiday Inn Express.2 As people are wont to do, I inspected the carton of milk in front of me, mostly out of boredom. The ingredients list happened to catch my eye: Milk, Vitamin A, Vitamin D. And underneath that a food allergy disclaimer – Contains: Milk.
Of course it contains Milk! It IS Milk! ‘Milk’ is the single biggest word ON the carton, and it’s repeated several times! Are we really such an ignorant and litigious culture that we need this kind of horrendous intelligence-insulting CYA on a single serving carton of milk?3
And don’t even get me started on how the Feds are gonna start raiding garage sales.
A few weeks ago Alex posted a picture on his Facebook page from the vending machine at work. I laughed out loud because the same item showed up in our vending machine as well: Burger King Onion Rings (Flavored Snacks)
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