Maggie's Farm

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Saturday, March 28. 2015

Breakfast is back - or not


Now that we have finally been informed by our intellectual superiors that a real breakfast is healthier than fattening grains and fattening fruit, a new heresy appears to attack the dietary consensus: Breakfast is not important (unless you are a growing child or do physical labor all day)


Of course not. I thrive on coffee for breakfast, maybe with a cigar or some tobacco. A good diner breakfast, much as I love it on the rare occasion, puts me to sleep instead of giving me energy to do things.

Posted by Bird Dog in Food and Drink, Our Essays, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 05:00 | Comments (9) | Trackbacks (0)

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That, Sir, is a darned good looking breakfast.
#1 ron snyder on 2015-03-28 09:04 (Reply)
I prefer both the fatty high protein meals with sausage, thick cut bacon, eggs over easy AND I love the fattening grains and fruit too. But I also love my evening snack of chocolate and chips and sometimes nuts and cookies. When I worked nights I could eat two breakfasts every day, I do love breakfast. I have eaten four meals a day my whole life, 71 years. I sometimes buy a pie from one of those restaurants that sell their whole pies to go and take it home and eat the whole thing. I eat a family size bag of chips in one snack. I have eaten an entire package of oreos while watchng TV after dinner. My weight has always been normal. I remain unconvinced that carbs or fruits or fats or any food "causes" obesity. I think it is all about genetics. Most people can lose or gain 10-20 lbs but it is generally genetic if you are 100 or 200 lbs overweight. When you are fighting that genetic predisposition to weigh 350 lbs it is easy to get caught up in the belief that there is some magic combination of foods that will make you svelte and look 20 years younger.
#2 GoneWithTheWind on 2015-03-28 09:56 (Reply)
Breakfast is a pretty important meal when it has been 10-12 hours since you have eaten. Why would you eat if you are not hungry? That's why people are 100-200 pounds overweight. Ain't no genetic disposition to be a hog. Weight control is intake versus outgo. If you take in more calories than you expend, you will gain weight. Glandular problems? OK: which gland? Very rare. If you want to maintain a weight, don't over eat. If you want to lose weight, cut back on calories. Those 300 pound whales you see at Walmart are eating 4500-5000 calories a day. A sedentary man of 200 pounds needs about 3000 calories a day to maintain weight. It's just maths for most people.

I am not trying to be cruel as I am no slim young thing myself. If you want to be thin, eat like a thin person. If you're fat, you're eating like a fat person. With the abundance of wonderful foods it is difficult to not eat too much. I empathize but you are what you eat and you're fat if you eat too much.

Coffee for the first meal of the day and then a bit later eggs and a muffin. BD, how do you smoke a stogie early in the morning? I thought tobacco had been dropped from the food pyramid?

That breakfast looks delicious.
#3 tennesseered on 2015-03-28 10:17 (Reply)
For a lot of people what you have said is true. They can over eat and gain 10-20 lbs easily or they can watch their diet and lose 10-20 lbs easily. For those with a genetic prediposition to be obese (350 lbs more or less) what you have said is simply not true. They are not obese because they eat poorly or overeat. Their body works against them and retains fat, it is genetic pure and simple. An obese person cannot lose all that weight and become a "normal" weight without a punishing starvation diet. Once they have lost the weight they must remain on a very strict diet to simply keep from gaining their wieght back. Very few obese people can lose all that excess weight and even fewer can keep it off once they lose it. Most of us who enjoyed a more or less "normal" weight for the first 40 years or so of our life will probably put on 10-20-50 lbs as we age. This too is genetic, not unavoidable and easier to regulate than obesity is but it is in the genes your parents handed down to you. For most people it is simple; if you are a woman look at your mother and grandmother and that is you in 20-30 years, for men look at your father or grandfather. Can you avoid it? Maybe, but more likely you will delay it or mitigate it. Istead of being 50 lbs overweight like your mother when she was 50 you may manage to be 20 lbs overweight but it will require dieting. Conversely if your parents endowed you with skinny genes you will not need to diet and at 40,50 and 60 you will still be skinny.
#3.1 GoneWithTheWind on 2015-03-28 13:22 (Reply)
Gary Taubes in his book"Why We Get Fat" disabuses the notion that over-eating is th reason people get fat. Its a bit different from that simplistic thinking.

I won't go into Taubes' details, read the book yourself. (Hint: Its what you eat and shouldn't, white flour, sugar and refined carbs of all types...stop eating that and eat protein-meat, eggs and the like- instead and you'll lose weight.)
#3.2 Earl T on 2015-03-28 20:43 (Reply)
My daddy told me to look at a woman's Mama before I married her because that was what I would end up with thirty years down the road.

We certainly have a lot of people with a genetic disposition to be obese these days. There are different body types and if you are an endomorph you certainly are going to be pudgy or fat. Agreed. But you don't have to be a whale.

And, yes, as we age we can pack on pounds. But, it is controllable.

As for the huge humans, those of the 300+ pound range, I disagree that they are all genetically disposed to be that weight. They eat gigantic amounts. Once the pounds are on self esteem flies out the window and they continue to eat. How else do they maintain that weight? If you do not eat your body will tap your fat reserve, guaranteed. They are eating.

Eating can become an addiction, a compulsion and an obsession. It does take will power to overcome--you just can't put it in your mouth and down your gullet.

As far as punishing: bah, and humbug! If you weigh 300 pounds and want to lose, eat what a 180 pound person would eat: about 2700 calories a day. Over time you will become a 180 pound person. If you get to 180 and start eating 4000 calories a day it is assured that you will blimp up again.

Somehow you must be truly blessed to eat as you describe. However, you seem to have the same disposition to eat as the largest of the fatties. You are indeed lucky. You are an experiment of one and you bias shows.

You must remember that humans do not get fat from not eating. The get fat from over indulgence.
#4 tennesseered on 2015-03-28 14:10 (Reply)
My daddy told me to look at a woman's Mama before I married her because that was what I would end up with thirty years down the road.

We certainly have a lot of people with a genetic disposition to be obese these days. There are different body types and if you are an endomorph you certainly are going to be pudgy or fat. Agreed. But you don't have to be a whale.

And, yes, as we age we can pack on pounds. But, it is controllable.

As for the huge humans, those of the 300+ pound range, I disagree that they are all genetically disposed to be that weight. They eat gigantic amounts. Once the pounds are on self esteem flies out the window and they continue to eat. How else do they maintain that weight? If you do not eat your body will tap your fat reserve, guaranteed. They are eating.

Eating can become an addiction, a compulsion and an obsession. It does take will power to overcome--you just can't put it in your mouth and down your gullet.

As far as punishing: bah, and humbug! If you weigh 300 pounds and want to lose, eat what a 180 pound person would eat: about 2700 calories a day. Over time you will become a 180 pound person. If you get to 180 and start eating 4000 calories a day it is assured that you will blimp up again.

Somehow you must be truly blessed to eat as you describe. However, you seem to have the same disposition to eat as the largest of the fatties. You are indeed lucky. You are an experiment of one and your bias shows.

You must remember that humans do not get fat from not eating. The get fat from over indulgence.
#4.1 tennesseered on 2015-03-28 14:14 (Reply)
We are all different. Some can eat a lot, some can eat little, and both be fine. Others...can't.

I say (repeat): If it ain't fried, it ain't food; and the only condiment better than a pound of bacon is 2 pounds of bacon.

YMMV.
#5 Sam L. on 2015-03-28 16:32 (Reply)
A few years ago on my first visit to the UK as an adult, I had an "English Breakfast" at a small hotel, "Pride of the Valley" near Hindhead. Nice place, worth this small personal plug.

But the breakfast was extraordinary. Huge. Delicious. Fried eggs, fried sausages, fried bacon, fried potatoes, fried beans, fried tomatoes, fried mushrooms, fried bread, fried black pudding (don't ask), fried onions, fried air, fried grease, fried knife and fork on a fried plate.

Stupefied me and caused me to drive to the wrong airport, Heathrow instead of Gatwick and so miss my flight to Zurich. Had to wait at Heathrow for a few hours and tried to drown the damn breakfast in coffee and beer. Didn't work. Arrived at Zurich at 5 PM still burping. Farted the Union Jack for days.

I shall return.
#6 Fred Z on 2015-03-29 22:08 (Reply)

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