Food, nutrition, and KFC

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[Keith Larman]

My daughter sometimes rolls her eyes when I start talking about food, food like substances, nutrition, etc. It's been a big deal for me, especially lately, as I try to "clean up my act".

So I'm watching all the latest hand wringing about KFC coming out with its new "Double-down" "sandwich". For those not in the know, this is two chicken patties, deep fried, with bacon and cheese sandwiched in between. I subscribe to all sorts of nutritional newsletter, etc. And I've seen a veritable flood of "what is the world coming too!" articles and reviews.

Okay. I see the point. First of all, i'm leaving out the whole discussion of mass production in "farming" of chickens, etc. Let's just consider the nutritional info.

One KFC Double Down has 540 calories, 32 grams of fat and 1380 MG of sodium. Yeah, that's more sodium that I want to have in my diet for an entire day. Sure enough. And that much fat in one sitting isn't something I would normally want to do.

But I wondered about this as only a few days ago I went with some friends out to a burger joint. One guy had a two chicken sandwiches with bacon. Okay, he had the two chicken breasts, more bacon, more cheese, and a white "bread" bun that was probably close to nutritionally inert except for more calories and salt.

Another guy had a double cheeseburger, also with bacon. So I got to thinking...

McDonalds has a Angus Cheese Bacon burger. Very popular. Advertised because "angus" to some means high grade beef. It has 790 calories, 39 grams of fat, and 960 mg of sodium. A couple hundred more calories, more fat, although a bit less than way too much sodium.

So I looked at the chicken sandwich at McDonalds. Premium chicken club sandwich. I believe that is also fried. 630 calories, 28 grams of fat, and 1360 mg sodium.

Just for giggles I looked up the Jack in the Box Bacon Ultimate Cheeseburger. 940 calories, 66 grams of fat (wow), and 1840 mg of sodium.

So... Yeah, I can't eat any of this stuff. But why are people so bent out of shape about this particular fat and salt loaded food-like-product from KFC when there are many, many others that in some cases are almost twice as bad in some areas that have been on the market vastly longer? Why is this one being demonized when the "regular fare" at many of these restaurants are demonstrably worse?

Not to mention the fact that all the other come on highly processed bread products made with highly processed flour that make things even worse?

I guess I just find this interesting from a sociological point of view.

Oh, I should also mention that McDonalds has a 5 piece "premium" select chicken strips entree. 660 calories, 40 grams of fat, and 1680 mg of sodium. No bacon. No cheese. Just the strips. Which most people will also get with a large order of fries. And a large code. Which would come out (for the meal) to... 1470 calories, 65 grams of fat, and 2050 mg of sodium.

Enjoy your lunch... ;)

Seriously, why is the double-down thingie from KFC any worse or somehow a precursor to the four horsemen of the Apocalypse? I agree that most of this stuff is really not what one should eat very often if at all. But there's a lot of stuff long on the menus that is vastly worse...

And for those who are into sources, all nutritional data gleaned from each vendor's official information on their websites.

Sorry, my deep ponder of the day as I work...

[Keith Larman]

And just to be complete and as a contrast... McDonald's original Cheeseburger. 300 calories. 12 grams of fat, and 750 mg of sodium. I routinely see people "cut back" by eating two of those original cheeseburgers. 600 calories, 24 grams of fat, 1500 mg of sodium. Which is more calories than the double-down food-like thing from KFC. A bit lower on the fat calories and sodium, but really...

Pardon me as I go back to my hummus, turkey breast, tomato and avocado wrapped in red leaf lettuce for lunch.

Unfortunately now I'm craving fried chicken... ;)

[David Board]

You should clearly have the salad. One wouldn't like to appear as a glutton.

Crispy Chicken Caesar Salad with Dressing & Croutons
650 Cal, 32 g and 1340 in Sodium

[Keith Larman]

You should clearly have the salad. One wouldn't like to appear as a glutton.

Crispy Chicken Caesar Salad with Dressing & Croutons
650 Cal, 32 g and 1340 in Sodium

Sad, but true... More calories, same fat, almost as much sodium.

But at least you'd get a couple nutrients and a few grams of fiber.

Amazing, really.

[Chris Covington]

I'm far from old (I just turned 31), but my body has started to tell me more about what it likes and doesn't like. I'm having a harder and harder time eating a lot of the fast food stuff these days. Last night I was moving into my new house and it was getting late and I was running out of steam so we grabbed some McD's and I felt like crap afterwards. Even stuff like Panera Breads (yummy fresh baked breads, soups and salads...looks healthy... it ain't) is really high in fat and sodium. Let's not mention the sugar in stuff! I'm not a low carb guy or anything, but sometimes when I look at the sugar in foods my jaw drops. Some breads have as much sugar as candy or cake! And then we have high fructose corn syrup... I think it might be poison. Pepsi has made throwback Pepsi, Dr. Pepper and Mt. Dew with real sugar and if you ask me it taste a lot better!

Good luck eating the American diet.

[Kevin Leavitt]

also known as SAD: Standard American Diet.

[Marc Abrams]

Maybe I'm nuts (okay, I am) and/or my wrestling background, but I have never taken my kids to a fast food place, I do not allow sodas in my house, I rarely touch junk food and basically do not allow almost all of it in my house. My kids have grown up to appreciate good food and drink and we all are healthy.

The "American Diet" is basically "American's died from eating it."

Sad to see so many obese children and morbidly obese adults in our country.

Marc Abrams

[George S. Ledyard]

Maybe I'm nuts (okay, I am) and/or my wrestling background, but I have never taken my kids to a fast food place, I do not allow sodas in my house, I rarely touch junk food and basically do not allow almost all of it in my house. My kids have grown up to appreciate good food and drink and we all are healthy.

The "American Diet" is basically "American's died from eating it."

Sad to see so many obese children and morbidly obese adults in our country.

Marc Abrams

Marc's home has consistently been rated Five Star by the Association of Visiting Senseis. Definitely way above what most folks are used to. What I like especially is the young teen as apprentice sommelier...

[Howard Popkin]

Marc's home has also been compared to Sonoma County and To the Juan Valdez Coffee plantation in Colombia.....although the coffee at Marc's is CONSIDERABLY better then Juan's....

I'm just sayin.............
:D

[Keith Larman]

What I like especially is the young teen as apprentice sommelier...

Had a friend over visiting recently. We were enjoying a lovely 1990 Ch. Leoville Barton with dinner. My 9-year-old daughter asked if she could taste the wine. Not a problem for us so I pass her my glass. She sets it on the table, swirls it gently, pops her nose in to take a good, long smell, then sits back and says "hmmm, kinda leathery". Then she takes a small sip, tastes, and says "that's really nice." Then she passed my glass back and went back to her dinner...

I looked over at our friend and his eyes were wide. Then he laughed... He said "I should have known your child would know more about wine than I do."

[Janet Rosen]

Nice one! I'd much rather a kid be introduced to alcohol in the context of slow, healthy mealtimes than think "eating" is something done with "food" from a "fast food restaurant."

[Howard Popkin]

I'd rather have dinner at Marc's :)

[Howard Popkin]

with George :)

[Marc Abrams]

Keith:

I have actually been training my son to learn how to identify the "nose" on wines! Your daughter has GREAT PROMISE! Keep up the good work. The 90 is VERY DRINKABLE right now! Has a wonderful currant along with leather and tobacco in that wine. Great way to teach your child is to ask her to think of that particular aroma and try and "find it" in the sip.

George and Howie:

Fans of Chateau Marc huh! The inn of renown for dysfunctional family members and martial artists who enjoy the simple pleasures of a nice meal and a good drink.

Would love to have Keith, George and Howie over for a meal! Open invitation for you guys!

Regards,

Marc Abrams

[Keith Larman]

Would love to have Keith, George and Howie over for a meal! Open invitation for you guys!

Regards,

Marc Abrams

Ahh, you just want me for my wine selection... ;)

Would love it!

My dad collected (and still does collect) wine. So I was brought up with wine being around constantly, trips to Napa in the summer and sometimes during the crush, etc. Wine was just part of eating and food when I was growing up. So if I wanted a taste, I'd get it. My dad would also make a point of suggesting I taste something if he felt it was particularly good. As I got older my sip got a bit bigger and eventually sometimes I'd have a small glass with dinner. No stigma attached. Just part of a meal. So that's the idea we're trying to instill in the kid -- nothing special, nothing forbidden, just part of a meal in proper context and quantity. She really likes when we open a good cabernet because she knows that it means we will likely have some really good chocolate for dessert too... She has surprised me a number of times with her ability to pick out scents. She really has no biases yet, so she picks up on stuff I sometimes wouldn't have thought of. I'll take another sniff and go "okay, yeah, I see what you mean..." I've also got a few bottles of 1990 Lagrange left but sadly only one 1990 Leoville Barton. But I've also got a 1990 Montrose... Gotta find a *really* special occasion for that one.

[Marc Abrams]

Ahh, you just want me for my wine selection... ;)

Would love it!

My dad collected (and still does collect) wine. So I was brought up with wine being around constantly, trips to Napa in the summer and sometimes during the crush, etc. Wine was just part of eating and food when I was growing up. So if I wanted a taste, I'd get it. My dad would also make a point of suggesting I taste something if he felt it was particularly good. As I got older my sip got a bit bigger and eventually sometimes I'd have a small glass with dinner. No stigma attached. Just part of a meal. So that's the idea we're trying to instill in the kid -- nothing special, nothing forbidden, just part of a meal in proper context and quantity. She really likes when we open a good cabernet because she knows that it means we will likely have some really good chocolate for dessert too... She has surprised me a number of times with her ability to pick out scents. She really has no biases yet, so she picks up on stuff I sometimes wouldn't have thought of. I'll take another sniff and go "okay, yeah, I see what you mean..." I've also got a few bottles of 1990 Lagrange left but sadly only one 1990 Leoville Barton. But I've also got a 1990 Montrose... Gotta find a *really* special occasion for that one.

Keith:

I knew there was a deeper, darker (as in red) reason why I liked your posts:D ! My father was a Bordeaux collector. Not surprisingly, my brother and I have taken on the "bad habit" of collecting wines (besides a bunch of others). If you bring the 90 Lagrange, I will crack the last '82 Haut Brion, open the first of the 2001 Lynch Bagnes, and even throw in a 2001 Diamond Creek. I know George and Ginny will bring some good juice as well. There is nothing better than enjoying some great wine with people who love good juice! I have a South American wood grill in my back yard. I would do either a leg of lamb (on the bone) or new york strips with Truffle salt and old rub. Howie can bring some FRESH TUNA for sashimi and sushi openers!

We will call the meeting an Aiki Summit so that we can write the expenses off :D .

Regards,

Marc Abrams

ps- George and his wife and Mayda and I will be in Sonoma/Napa in the beginning of August. If you are up for a big meet/indulgence, so am I!

[Dan Rubin]

"KFC is coming out with their new Double Down sandwich. It's bacon and cheese wrapped inside two pieces of fried chicken.... Today, al-Qaeda said: 'We quit. When it comes to killing Americans, we can't keep up with you guys.'"

--Jay Leno

[jss]

But I've also got a 1990 Montrose... Gotta find a *really* special occasion for that one.
"You know, the day you open a '61 Cheval Blanc... that's the special occasion." - Maya, from the movie 'Sideways'. Although I would choose a better setting than Miles did in the movie...

[bob_stra]

Counter-point, of sorts

http://www.fathead-movie.com/index.php/about/
http://www.fathead-movie.com/

[Marc Abrams]

"You know, the day you open a '61 Cheval Blanc... that's the special occasion." - Maya, from the movie 'Sideways'. Although I would choose a better setting than Miles did in the movie...

Cheval has an operation in Mendoza Argentina. The wines from the vineyard are a remarkable meeting place between price and quality!

Marc Abrams

[Keith Larman]

Counter-point, of sorts

http://www.fathead-movie.com/index.php/about/
http://www.fathead-movie.com/

Yeah, I've seen it too. It's all interesting. A high fat, low carb diet certainly works very well. And there is no doubt that *one* factor contributing to things like obesity, type 2 diabetes, etc. is certainly the huge amounts of simple carbohydrates we eat. And don't get me started on the "food industry" in general shoving sweeteners in *everything*. Cutting out the myriad of sugar sources in our diet (and the sheer volume of other simple carbs like white flour, white rice, simple pastas, etc.) clearly can do a world of good for some people. I'm not sure that means the high fat/low carb diets some do are necessarily "good" diets. They may be effective because they address *some* aspects, but the same problem that underlies all of this still exists -- we really don't know a whole lot about diet and the role it plays in health. We tend to look for singular "villains" when the reality is that everything likely matters (like most stuff of complexity).

For me it is realizing that the modern diet is *really* modern. A product of the last 60 years give or take. Grains we eat are now ground *so* fine on stainless steel rollers they digest virtually instantly into sugar. We use oils to cook food that are *extracted* from sources that you wouldn't otherwise think was possible. We created fats that lasted longer on the shelves and were much more stable but ended up with trans fats that turned out to be, well, toxic. We eat things prepared for us, stuff that doesn't rot due to one additive after another, food that is easily prepared due to removing all the fiber and "hard to cook" stuff. Not to mention something Janet alluded to above -- how everything including *how* we eat has become rushed and "fast". We don't sit down and enjoy our meals together. And I could go on for hours. We suffer for all of it.

So for us... Over the years we've planted more of our own stuff. We're on a 10K sq foot lot and we've got a variety of fruit trees. We plant more and more things that create stuff we can eat. We try to focus on the foods we would have eaten 100 years ago and make virtually everything ourselves. For myself only, just doing that over time resolved my blood work showing me as "pre-diabetic". I also noticed that changing the diet has seemed to help with various joint issues I've long had.

But... I also had a hard reminder -- I was on statin drugs for years. Just recently I had a formulation/dosage change and within a month I was crippled with severe muscle pain and weakness. And even now months later I still have issues most likely due to long term damage caused by the statins. For me it was realizing that the drugs also carry a price tag well beyond the amazing amount of money they make the drug companies. I realized that I wanted my daughter to learn to eat well, to do the things I already knew we *should* be doing. We were already doing fairly well with our diet and habits, but I tended to backslide. I'm home alone all day working and it was tempting to get something "as a treat" when I'd venture out to ship out swords. Now I just take the time to get out the smoker and smoke some ribs during the day. Then I take the night off from working, get out a nice wine, and enjoy a long evening with the family. And my bloodwork has been steadily improving.

So eat good food, drink good wine, spent time with good friends, and enjoy life. We just need a reality check on what "food" really is. And you generally don't get it delivered through your car window in a drive through. Regardless of what it is.

And by the way, the whole point of me starting this thread was to point out that the double-down thingie is likely vastly less bad for you than most fast food fare already out there. Now considering the thing is really pretty nasty, that says a lot about all the other stuff people routinely eat.

[Keith Larman]

Cheval has an operation in Mendoza Argentina. The wines from the vineyard are a remarkable meeting place between price and quality!

Marc Abrams

We've been slowly getting back to the wines. When we first got married we found we weren't able to conceive children. So we did Napa trips, bought cases, got a small cellar, and basically spent the college fund money. But in our late 30's, oops, a very difficult pregnancy (for the same reasons) but we got through it. She was on total bed rest and couldn't drink anything. So we kinda left the wine alone. Then about 2-3 years ago we starting looking in the cellar. We had lots of wines we'd bought just before wine took off in price (wow, talk about sticker shock when I first went into a wine shop after those years away). So we worked our way through our cellar drinking wines that were all very ready to drink. Unfortunately now we're down to not much and starting to look around. I'll have to find a few bottles of the Cheval from Argentina. I've had a few rather impressive Argentinian wines lately.

[gregstec]

Warm beer and cold pizza, the breakfast of champions - at least that is the way I lived through my 20s :D

Greg

[Marc Abrams]

We've been slowly getting back to the wines. When we first got married we found we weren't able to conceive children. So we did Napa trips, bought cases, got a small cellar, and basically spent the college fund money. But in our late 30's, oops, a very difficult pregnancy (for the same reasons) but we got through it. She was on total bed rest and couldn't drink anything. So we kinda left the wine alone. Then about 2-3 years ago we starting looking in the cellar. We had lots of wines we'd bought just before wine took off in price (wow, talk about sticker shock when I first went into a wine shop after those years away). So we worked our way through our cellar drinking wines that were all very ready to drink. Unfortunately now we're down to not much and starting to look around. I'll have to find a few bottles of the Cheval from Argentina. I've had a few rather impressive Argentinian wines lately.

My very good friend lives in Mendoza and I have been going there for many years on holidays. His family business is produce and grapes-> ergo my south american grill! The wines are still a good bargain. they use to be a great bargain but the prices have been going upwards. The Cheval I think is now around $65 per bottle, but you compare that to the Cheval from France...... The Malbecs from Argentina are GREAT wines with grilled meats. Great value, great taste.

My wife and I struggle to get by like most people in this country. Our respite in these difficult times is good company, healthy, home-cooked meals and a nice drinks. Less than going out and more intimate, delicious and memorable. We look forward to having one of those experiences with you and your family!

Regards,

Marc Abrams

[Cady Goldfield]

David Zinczenko writes a blog, Twitter items and articles on fast food for Yahoo. Here's a recent one (you can follow links to others of his relevant articles):

http://health.yahoo.com/experts/eatthis/48983/unhealthiest-foods-at-the-mall/;_ylt=ArvPg88egrN.rK05P6fwC9iz5xcB

[Keith Larman]

ps- George and his wife and Mayda and I will be in Sonoma/Napa in the beginning of August. If you are up for a big meet/indulgence, so am I!

Geez, I'd be tempted to drive up just for the indulgence. Too bad it's not the weekend of Aug 19, 20 and 21. That's the time of the San Francisco Token Kai. If you guys made it out around then I would be happy to show you around, introduce you to people, and see if I can show you the swords that stay under the table in locked cases... A sword lovers dream. I drive up with the wife and daughter each year to work a table and study swords. After the show we either head up to Sonoma for an extra day or come down through the Central Coast, hitting wineries here and there. I especially like Foxen as it is still just as nice a place as it seemed in the movie. Although I understand they might have built a new tasting room lately.

We went up to Napa a few years ago for our 20th anniversary after having been away for a long time. Man, has it changed. I was *so* glad we had booked the B&B in Sonoma instead. Much more like what I remembered Napa being like from decades ago. Napa is now more like DisneyWineLand (trademark). Inevitable I suppose.