by OneMoreBite | Apr 5, 2005 | Diet Products
Those wacky kids at Google are at it again. If you don’t know right away what I mean, check out this new offering:
Visit Google Gulp
What’s this? “Think fruity. Think refreshing,” says Google.
“Think a DNA scanner embedded in the lip of your bottle reading all 3 gigabytes of your base pair genetic data in a fraction of a second, fine-tuning your individual hormonal cocktail in real time using our patented Auto-Drink™ technology, and slamming a truckload of electrolytic neurotransmitter smart-drug stimulants past the blood-brain barrier to achieve maximum optimization of your soon-to-be-grateful cerebral cortex. Plus, it’s low in carbs!”
Who ever has this job has gotta be having a great time, and that’s all I know, so hats off to you Google Guys for making it real, er, in a fake product kind of way.
BTW, notice how their page makes you want this, even though they say it will analyze your brain, and even though it’s basically hopeless you’ll find someone with a cap so you can get one too? That’s my point. Advertising. Watch what you see and read and pay attention. Ads are designed to make you want what they offer so they make big promises and you may just not even notice what the ad really says at all. “Results not typical,” and whatnot. This is an excellent example of pure marketing in action. Even I want some. 😉
by OneMoreBite | Apr 4, 2005 | Book Reviews
I recently read a book by the only man to have survived alone on a raft at sea for more than a month, Editor of Cruising World magazine, Steven Callahan. In Adrift, Seventy-six Days Lost at Sea, Callahan recounted how while slowly starving he dreamt of food
“My body knows what it needs. For hours on end fantasies of sweet ice cream, starchy baked bread, and vitamin-rich fruits and vegetables water the mouth in my mind.”
Reading an account of one man’s survival in the face of sure death was inspiring to say the least.
My husband is currently building a boat designed by Callahan; actually it’s the redesign of Solo, the very boat that capsized when he was set adrift! My husband plans to take off on a singlehanded sailing adventure across the seas. He believes he could survive as Callahan did, while I’m telling myself I’ll die of starvation if I don’t eat in the next half an hour. Just sort of puts things in better perspective, I’d say.
by OneMoreBite | Mar 28, 2005 | Weight Loss Tips
I found myself putting an Easter goody in my cart and as I pushed toward the checkout I read the back, chocolate, coconut, “Hey, I thought. This sounds just like a Mounds Bar,” so sure enough I wandered to that aisle. (This is why it takes me hours to do the grocery shopping). I checked and yes indeed, the ingredients were the same. Here I was ready to shell out premium dollars because they’d taken a regular candy bar and put it in a nice shiny wrapper all dressed up for Sunday school!
I put it back. I look at candy bars all the time but I rarely buy them. Usually all it takes is a glance at the nutritional panel, and when I see the 12 grams of fat I think, “I’d rather have cheesecake,” and put it back.
So, next holiday make sure you aren’t just paying extra for the pretty packaging. If you don’t usually buy candy bars, why are you buying them now in their Halloween or Christmas colors? What is it about the red-white-and-blue packages that we are drawn to (frankly, those are not colors that are generally associated with food anyway). What about the pastel M&M’s? That’s just dumb to me becaues it’s the bright colors that makes me want M&Ms in the first place. Take that away and what have you got? For the record, I could have a million white M&Ms and I doubt I’d ever touch them.
So, next time you’re wandering the holiday aisles, just keep in mind, you are paying more money for the same thing. Wait for it to be really special. Shop speciality stores. This marketing ploy is just not funny anymore.
by OneMoreBite | Mar 28, 2005 | Food Reviews
Burger King has introduced two new sandwiches in what they call their “flavorful and indulgent breakfast sandwiches” selection to meet the growing (pun intended) need of starving Americans; namely, the Enormous Omelet Sandwich and the Western Omelet Croissan’wich. The sandwiches’ names tell the story: Enormous anyone? When a sandwich tells you right up front that it’s enormous you can bet it’ll be a dilly. ?The Enormous Omelet Sandwich is everything people love in a breakfast sandwich, but twice the size and twice as satisfying,? stated Denny Post, the chief concept officer at Burger King Corporation (BKC). Oh, yeah! Have it Your Way, all righty.
According to their way innovative nutritional dropdown, pick your foods so we can’t be blamed approach, they state the Enormous Omelet Sandwich has 730 calories, 47 grams of fat (17 saturated), 9 grams of sugar, 43 grams of carbs and 1860 grams of sodium. Yumbo. I think their numbers are slightly off because they list each ingredient, but give no estimate for the oils, etc. used in the cooking. You know they don’t cook those eggs in water.
They didn’t have nutritional info listed for the Western Omelet Croissan’wich (dumb name if you ask me), but it was just introduced this morning so you couldn’t expect them to update their website in a timely fashion, right? They only knew this new item would be introduced today for what, maybe six months? The advertisers got the memo, why not the web guy?
Not to be out done, I heard on the news just this evening that Hardies offers a hamburger that clocks in at over 1400 calories and 110 grams of fat! Holy heart attack, Batman! That is just plain ridiculous. You might as well just lay in the street cause you’re as good as dead if you eat that very often. “Want fries with that?” “Why, I think I do, and one of them apple pies too, if you please.” And people wonder why they’re gaining weight. Sheesh. I tried to find info on it, but was unsuccessful finding a website for Hardies. That seems odd. It’s also odd that I ran into tons of posts about how much people do not like that chain. So sad to hear. We don’t have them around these parts, and I could be misspelling the name, so sorry to them, if that’s the case.
According to Burger King, people were clamoring for a decent sized breakfast sandwich after voicing their displeasure at the skimpy offerings. Apparently the public is none too pleased with BK’s attempts to offer healthier choices and worst of all, smaller portions. “Not in my backyard,” or in this case, “Not in my fast food joint!” seems to be the common cry. We want it for the other guy, but not for me.
There is no way fast food places are going to scale back their menus. That’s just not what the buying public wants. Remember when they tried salad bars? Didn’t work.
I totally love the lame idea of cut up fruit and a mini bowl of yogurt. Like I’m going to a restaurant for that? The cut fruit in the grocery is too expensive, so how much do they charge for that, and how hungry would you be a half hour later? I’ll bet it’s one of the first to go.
by OneMoreBite | Mar 22, 2005 | Diet Products
Big surprise here but experts are weighing in on the new “lowered sugared” versions of pre-sweetened cereals and their findings shouldn’t surprise anyone. You can’t take sugar and a splash of flour, and switch it around and make much difference. It’s still sugar, and a splash of flour.
Although the new cereals do have less sugar, the calories, carbohydrates, fat, fiber and other nutrients are almost identical to the full-sugar cereals. There is no benefit to the consumer at all, but who thought there would be?
Lower fat products usually have more sugar. Lower carb products have artificial sweeteners (debate rages on their safety), and now the “Low Sugar” versions are really just a disguised marketing ploy. They’ll probably cost more too, so watch out!
Give your kids some oatmeal once in awhile. I loved it when I was a kid, brown sugar on top and all! Far healthier than Sugar Pops (oh, right they changed their name awhile ago), or Sugar Smacks (oh, wait! They changed the name of that cereal too!). Where is the graveyard for all the old cereals who featured “sugar” in their names? That sounds like another research project … how many cereals have changed their names to appear more healthy when in fact, they are the same garbage disguised as good food as always?
That’s why I argue that eating cake for breakfast is no different than eating a bowl of sugared cereal. So go ahead. If you want something sweet. Hold off in the evening, and have that dessert the next morning. It works for me
