🚀 go-pugleaf

Elmo wrote:

> 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.

People are not passive in this.  People choose to buy, 
and consume, the jumbo portions.  They choose them 
because they *want* them.  The "clean your plate" 
admonishment is *not* an exhortation to eat lots of 
food; rather, it is an attempt by mothers to get their 
children to eat the nutritious things that children 
often don't want to eat.  It *is* a sin, or at least a 
failing, to waste food.  Don't take too much in the 
first place.


> 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.

Only because the greedy-gut people who go there *want* 
huge 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. 

But restaurant economics are the same the world over, 
yet you don't see Gargantuan portions in restaurants in 
France and Italy.  Not every French restaurant is a 
two- or three-star corner of culinary heaven; they have 
what are by their standards just average places, and 
they don't serve 24 oz. Porterhouse steaks in any of them.


> 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!
> 
>