The Pedant's Bone to Pick

I know this is really The Sherb's feature, but I've got a food article peeving me in a big way, so I feel I should vent.

Some food writer on the Divine Caroline website has an article called "portion sizes: then and now" which makes the case that food portions have increased over the past twenty years, and therefore we are more likely to consume more food.

An argument that more food is available is probably true, but that's not the point. This article makes its argument with the following graphics:

(picture stolen from Slashfood's synopsis of this article)

From this, and similar pictures, the point is intimated that we just sell the huge size now, that people can't get the tiny size. Maybe they're discouraged from it, but it's not true that I can only walk out of the store with the "lard boy" size.

I've been to the movies recently, and you can still get the little popcorn. I'd suggest it, since it's A) cheaper, B) not as bad for you (even with all that flavored powder you put on it), C) you're not going to get that free refill in the midst of Kung Fu Panda anyway.

Similarly, the website says "[w]hen McDonald’s first started in 1955, its only hamburger weighed around 1.6 ounces; now, the largest hamburger patty weighs 8 ounces, an increase of 500 percent."

Guess what? The hamburger patty still weighs 1.6 ounces. That you choose to buy the Big & Tasty (4 oz. patty) or the dollar menu double cheeseburger (which, in Washington, DC, is cheaper than the $1.39 hamburger) does not change the fact that you could buy a tiny hamburger if you wanted to.

Similarly, the article says that it used to be that you could get an 8 oz. bottle of Coke. I saw them in the Teet yesterday. They're a little more expensive, being in collectable glass bottles, but they still exist.

I'm just as guilty as everyone else (if not more so) in picking the super-size glutton portions of things, but it really isn't as if the lesser ones aren't available. Food just happens to be cheaper than it was thirty years ago (as Mark Bittman points out), and we like to eat.

Also, Judge Posner of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals says that forcing people to know how much fat is in their lardburger is counterproductive, and I trust him, even if he wrote in Douglas v. Hustler Magazine, 769 F.2d 1128 (7th Cir. 1985) that "[f]ew men are interested in lesbians," which as we all know is not exactly true.

Bone To Pick

I have a bone to pick with Chick Lit (OK, OK, it's not about food, but it's my blog so who cares!). I just finished reading The Favored Child (2nd in the Wideacre trilogy) by Philippa Gregory. My goodness did that suck! I picked it up from the library (totally not worth $10.88!) thinking "Huh! I, and the rest of America, enjoyed The Other Boleyn Girl, and my sister enjoyed The Queen's Fool, and it's here, why not." Oh, Sherbs, bad, bad choice. First of all, the plot was stupid. The main characters were all just stupid, the climax was stupid (and predictable to a degree), the love interest was a wimp, and the writing was fair. Sure, I knew this coming into it - TOBG was well researched and a gripping historical tale but the writing would have gotten a B/B-. I mean, in the case of TFC, at least have a moderately happy ending not one that makes you go "What? I just read 614 pages for that?!" In the movie The Pedant and I saw last night at least they acknowledged you needed a happy ending.

Now, I understand there is not great chick lit out there (exception: my love, Jennifer Weiner). America is full of dumb people with adequate tastes and a desire to read books on the beach. I guess I want some meat in my stories. And some quality writing, not something a 14 year old could scratch out on Hello Kitty notebook paper. Candice Bushnell is terrible, Jane Greene writes about skinny girls finding love and thinking size 10 is fat, Lauren Weisaberger and the Team of Emma Kraus and Nicola McLaughlin write about angry bosses and dooormat protagonists just trying to make it big.

A Bone to Pick

I have a bone to pick with vegetable sushi. Now, I understand sushi is chic and very hip and therefore can be costly. Fine, I get it LA, you want us all to be uber thin (<begin tangential rant>I'm still ticked at the stupid body issues talk Tyra gave to her girls on America's Top Model (it was a fluke, there was nothing else on and The Pedant and I needed to digest a lot of Halloween candy pre-gym), I mean, c'mon, yes the industry is ridiculous, but as TP reminded me, Spain has set minimum weight requirement on models - Tyra, use your pull and do something not let the girls be teary eyed and then throw up their salad! <end tangential rant>) and eat bite sized portions based on Japanese fancy cuisine, but $5.85 for 8 pieces of brown rice avocado sushi?! C'Mon guys! This is VEGETABLE. And RICE. Not fish that needs to be very fresh and cut well. Ok, I did get the dish at WholePaycheck Foods, but still. I find it frustrating when VEGETABLE sushi is more than $2.00 for 6 rolls.

I may make "I have a bone to pick" a reoccurring topic when I need to rant. Like, "I have a bone to pick with slow service." Ala dinner last night. Yes, TP and I settled, mostly because I had to pee pretty badly, but still the service was veeerrryyyy slllloooowwwwwww. Pick it up a notch guys!