In between classes today I realized I was hungry and sleepy so I stopped in the coffee shop near my next class. I ordered a cup of coffee and looked at the giant apple fritter and was somewhat grossed out by it because the last time I had a quarter-pound pastry of the like I felt sick, greasy and tired for the next hour. So I got a small bagel with cream cheese instead. And I think this is the sort of reaction I read about in an interview with a doctor in the paper recently. He spoke about how smoking used to be everywhere – restaurants, hospitals, homes. But now many people are annoyed or nauseated by smoking, and smokers are expected to confine their habit to someplace where it won’t irritate other people. The doctor said that in the future, people will have the same reaction to Double Downs and 1500 Calorie meals and 64 ounce sodas: they will no longer be socially or commercially acceptable. For instance if a restaurant puts a tub of fatty artichoke dip in front of you with a basket of chips, it will be considered strange. A "venti" Frappuccino will be off the menu because it is just 20 ounces of sugar slurry and leads to blood sugar spikes, even in non-diabetic people. Meals that are only fat and salt will be rejected as not really food. And a fast-food restaurant that makes its customers shit for the next two days will actually lose business, go figure. He said that this kind of visceral reaction to so-called "hyper-palatable" foods (i.e. baby food consistency) will make the reasonable portion size and fat/salt/sugar content the default.
Anyway the apple fritter was probably about 300 calories and while it looked appealing momentarily, I thought about how much it weighed and about the greasy fingers I would have afterward, and it seemed less desirable. I only had two hours before I could get home and prepare a lunch of actual food.
pseudoisaac 