Interesting Links for 18-12-2012

[andrewducker]

• How to lose an argument on the internet.
  (tags: argument internet discussion funny )
• Scots parents reveal fury at Weetos breakfast cereal with character called 'Big Baws'
  (tags: funny scotland breakfast )
• JL8: The cutest take on Superman, Batman, etc. I've seen in a long time.
  (tags: cute comic superheroes )
• Instagram’s new Terms of Service

Comments

[bohemiancoast]

Not remotely surprised on the TV chef stuff, though it sort of depends how you mean 'healthier'. They compared 'levels of fat, saturated fat, energy, protein and fibre', and it's no surprise that the recipes from these books come out quite high. Most people are cooking from celeb chef books for special occasions. However, it's reputed that Jamie 'couldn't understand why he was putting on weight while he ate so healthily'. So, say again chaps, it doesn't matter how beautiful and fresh your food is if you eat too much of it, and extra virgin olive oil has just as many calories as lard (actually more, because you don't need quite so much lard to cook in and lard isn't 100% fat

[naath]

I think of most of these TV chef books as "special occasion" things; like I have Delia's Christmas book from a few years back - and sure, none of that is exactly "health food" but it's *Christmas food* you'd be a fule to suppose that anyone ate Christmas dinner every day!

BBC Good Food magazine helpfully provides nutritional breakdowns for the recipes (if you make them exactly how they say) which is useful if your stomach answers "what shall I eat today?" with "1500kcal of mostly protein" rather than with "cheese, I demand cheese".

[bohemiancoast]

To be fair to them, they did pick cookbooks that purport to be about everyday eating, and they have highlighted something that most home cooks already know -- food that is bad for you tastes nicer; in most cases you can make good food better by adding a dollop of something evil to it.

[anef]

I burst out laughing when I saw Nigella make her caramel croissant pudding on TV. Take croissants, add bourbon, sugar, eggs and cream, and bake in the oven. Eat by the light of the fridge door, as it is widely known that food eaten this way has no calories.

[bohemiancoast]

Oh, yes. One of the finest puddings in the world is Anthony Worrall Thompson's panettone toffee banana pudding, which is basically bread and butter pudding with the bread replaced with panettone, a double cream caramel, and yummy healthy fruit. But you don't eat it every day.

[channelpenguin]

neither fat nor protein are the enemy. nor energy either! if there is an enemy its sugar (and carbs that convert readily to sugar, ie most of them ) and also alcohol. well, processed veg oil is nasty bad stuff, but other than that. .. real food with no additives, gotta be better

[bohemiancoast]

I agree with this -- but you won't find a lot of wholegrain carbs in these books either. I think they were grasping for that a bit by counting fibre. Energy sort of is the enemy for most of us, in that we mostly simply eat a bit too much -- slightly too large portions, and extra snacks. But most Jamie meals for four (eg 30 minute meal meals) feed five to six, except the hideously expensive ones, and cutting down the portion size is the main change you need to make to fit them into a healthy diet.

[naath]

Depends on the people you're feeding surely - a child of 5 is going to need to eat less than an adult; an entirely sedentary person is going to need to eat less than a marathon runner; a person who eats only one meal a day will need that one meal to be larger than a person who eats three meals needs each meal to be...

A "healthy diet" for you may look entirely different to a "healthy diet" for me; and whilst I'm certainly all in favour of providing nutritional information I get tired of the moralistic labeling of energy-dense foods as "bad".

The "enemy" is ignorance. Of the nutritional breakdown of foods and of the nutritional requirements of your own body.

[heron61]

I entirely agree. In addition to homecooked food lacking various non-food and semi-food ingredients, the dangers of saturated fats are over-rated (in moderation of course). I expect that there are ready-made meals that don't contain various worrisome industrial ingredients, but most do. Also, I'd hope food is at least a good bit about taste, and I've yet to have any such thing compare favorably to food made at home or in a good restaurant.