🚀 go-pugleaf

Leif Erikson wrote:
> Jag_Pop@Hotmail.com wrote:
> 
>> Leif Erikson wrote:
>>
>>> Elmo wrote:
>>>
>>
>> .
>> (snip)
>> .
>>
>>
>>> We're talking 3500 square foot (and larger) McMansions,
>>> for people with two children at most, and who
>>> themselves grew up in the 1950s and 1960s as one of
>>> three to five children in a 1400 square foot house, and
>>> consider their youths to have been idyllic.  Multiple
>>> big-screen TVs (HD cable, of course) scattered
>>> throughout the McMansion, when they may have had a 17"
>>> black-and-white with rabbit ears antenna and perhaps
>>> six broadcast channels available.
>>>
>>
>> .
>> "six broadcast channels" ! ? !
>>
>> We only had three. And had to frequently bang the top
>> or sides of the tv to improve reception.
>> .
>> My wife and I sat in a movie theater lobby recently and
>> did some people watching. We love to people watch.
>> .
>> Have things changed radically overnight? Or do parks
>> and outdoor cafes, bookstores, garden shops, hiking paths
>> live theaters and museums have a different breed to watch?
>> The movie theater lobby
>> (a large one for a fourteen theater multiplex) was obese-city.
>> The trim were few, very very few. The kids were mirror images
>> of the parents. I saw kids with soda containers the size of
>> Oktoberfest Bier steins - NO, BIGGER! (Oktoberfest! now there
>> is people watching!). Disgusting and shameful display.
> 
> 
> Well, "fourteen screen multiplex" tells you all you need to know.  What 
> kind of movies were they showing? I can tell you that it wasn't whatever 
> today's equivalent of "My Dinner with Andre" or "Tampopo" might be (I 
> don't go to the movies any more; can you tell?) No, they were showing 
> Hollywood grind-em-out lowbrow fare, in most of which the star was 
> Special Effects.
> 
> I know just what you're talking about.  Movie theaters have for decades 
> been among the most unholy temples of Americans' tendency to excess.  I 
> remember seeing popcorn buckets that were big enough to bathe an infant, 
> and I can only guess they've gotten bigger.
> 
> 
>> .
>> My theory is: SUV and Minivans. People that ride hogs
>> are effected in appearance by it, why not SUV?
>> Big fat, guzzling, selfish, view obstructing SUV. The family
>> dog and the master look alike over time, why not SUV
>> and rider?
> 
> 
> But SUVs and minivans are symptoms, not causes.  They do go together in 
> lockstep with all the other grossly excessive forms of consumption.
> 
> There's a restaurant chain out here in California called Claim Jumper; 
> don't know where else they might be.  This place is infamous for 
> obscenely large portions.  Nothing is worse than some 
> heart-attack-on-a-plate dessert they serve called the Chocolate 
> Motherlode Cake, described on their website as "A 'Giant' Slice of our 
> Six-Layer Chocolate Cake." The word "giant" in the description doesn't 
> do it justice - it is Gargantuan.  One slice of this crap is more than 
> enough to serve four adults generously, but I've seen some blowpig 
> devour one by herself.
> 
> This kind of restaurant is almost entirely a suburban phenomenon.  You 
> don't see them out in small towns, and you don't see them in the trendy, 
> too-hip parts of big cities.  The really sad thing is, it exemplifies 
> what far too many people think is The Good Life, but it's simply 
> grotesque.  And it all comes down to what I earlier described as the 
> American philosophy, summed up as a motto:  if a little of something is 
> good, a lot must be great.  That belief simply is wrong, to the point of 
> being immoral.
> 
> 
>>
>> Not kidding.
> 
> 
> Unfortunately.


Portion sizes contribute to the problem by providing more calories than
any reasonable individual should consume which interacts with the ingrained
edicts to "Clean Your Plate!" [1] and "It's a sin to waste." so that we
consume more calories.  Where really upscale restaurants charge a lot for a
plate containing a relatively small portion, carefully prepared and very
carefully presented "for your dining enjoyment", it's more common to see a
family-oriented place providing much larger portions.  I think that some of
it has to do with the economics of the restaurant business.  You need to get
a certain amount of money over and above what the cost of the food to cover
overhead -- building, heat, taxes, owner's profit margin, etc.  If you're an
upscale joint, your clientele is paying a premium and knows it.  If you're a
local beanery or a franchised operation (like Friday at Applebee's in the
Outback or Chili Tuesdays with Ruby etc.) your clientele needs a more practical
reason to part with more money than the food is "worth" and if you give them
a big portion they won't feel so bad about paying for it.  So you load them
up with low-cost calories in the side-dishes.  French Fries, pasta, nacho
chips, and the like.  Price the individual sides high but include 2 or 3
with the platter specials at a price that's lower and you get people who
buy the special and eat the extra calories.  Worse, they come to accept that
as a "normal" portion size.  And I don't even want to think about the kind of
specialty foods that you can buy at entertainment venues (sporting events,
fairs, and the like).  Huge funnel cake -- about 6 pancakes worth of batter
fried in oil and dusted with sugar.  Deep fried Twinkies (frozen, dipped in
batter and deep fried) for Fud's sake!  And Doughnuts!  How many workplaces
have a Doughnut Day where when it's your turn you're supposed to bring in
2 or 6 dozen of those delightful fat pills.  Oink! Oink! OINK!


-- 
Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of
common aims based on a common reality. It involves the
compromise, the art of what's possible.