Welcome to the "Food Plate"
 

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/201...RAMIDlarge.jpg

I think this is a total waste of money. It is pathetic in that it is virtually the dame damn thing. If it helps, great. But until we do something about the addiction to fat, salt and sugar. The combination is like an orgasm to your brain. Producers have the dosages perfected. Oh and lets not forget high fructose corn syrup which should be illegal all by itself. But we probably wouldn't be able to justify the farm subsidies.....

Oh, I hope to everything holy that we didn't pay more than $50 for that cheap ass tacky graphic. Seriously WTF?

I actually like the graphic. It looks like a plate and cup. Nothing at all like a pie chart. And it has shadows and outlines and color gradients and stuff.

Of course, if it was a pie chart, you would actually be able to judge the relative sizes of the portions instead of just assuming they are roughly equal as they appear here.

You mean it would be like ... functional? :rolleyes:

No, he means he wants it to look like a pie.

I've got to say that I find it really incredible how much sugar there is in American snack foods. Most of them have this weird sort of flavour and texture which is different to what we have here. It's hard to define, but it mostly comes down to sugar content I think.

When is Pfaltzgraff making a set of these?

I can't figure out how much I'm supposed to be able to eat from this thing ... am I supposed to squish bread into the same size as the broccoli I'm having, or can I have the same size pile of Cheetoes? And does my pile size change depending on whether they are baked or cruchy?

and how high can you stack your piles?

I feel like it nicely represents the way that, through lobbying and corporate-cultural inertia, dairy is just sort of tacked on there without much regard for how, where, or why it fits in.

Or: it works great to maintain the status quo. Anyone can glance at that and either imagine their present diet fitting, kinda-sorta-maybe, or find a reason to completely disregard it.

All-you-can-eat was a foreign concept here when I was a teen.
The only type of restaurant offering it was a carvery - but you only got to go up once.

My Dad and I would compete to see who could get the most on the miniature dinner plates they gave you. I learned more about space and volume in those days than I ever did in science. I put it to great use over the years that I was poor (ie all of my 30s) when packing containers from the salad bar in supermarkets. I could get enough to eat for three days in one small container. You pay by container, not by weight - haha!

Back to original thread - I like these.
But that's about encouraging picky eaters, not about health.
The top picture cracks me up. Cheese and Peas. Very Fast Show.

Damned if I'm eating purple protein.

Mmmmmm... Pie. Since it's a pie chart plate, I'll fill mine with meat pie, vegetable pie, fruit pie, and pecan pie with whipped cream on top.

I don't think it's going to help - the plate's diameter is 30 inches. They's some BIG portions.

Its interesting how the dairy industry controls the cup rather than say clean water or a tall glass of corn syrup.

I think if you actually tried to fill your plate like that at every meal, you'd be doing pretty good. The entire left half must be fruits and vegetables. It's a nice improvement for people who are too uneducated to understand percentages--who also tend to be the worst eaters.

Of course, no one's going to pay any more attention to this than they do to any other basic health recommendations. But I do think it's a major improvement.

I'd be curious to see how closely the proportions here correlate with the proportions of the political grey-money that is spread around by the various food-producer lobby groups in Washington.

:tinfoil:

These food-separatists have got to go! What if I have a salad with chicken in it? What if my fruits and dairy go together? What if I have pork risotto with cheese and mandarin oranges, and put everything together in one pot?

you need to sort them out on your plate to make sure they are correctly proportioned. they ought to add a max diameter to that plate too....... If your plate is three feet wide, you're gonna get fat no matter how balanced the diet..... (Funny how the anti-govt-interference poster is calling for a ban on a food product.)

I don't see room for ice cream. Everybody needs some ice cream. We scream for it, sometimes.

Has anyone else seen this photo essay of what families around the world eat on a weekly basis and how much it costs them?

http://www.time.com/time/photogaller...373764,00.html

That's really interesting casi. Especially looking at the difference in amounts of food and types ie packet/processed v fresh whole foods.

The bit that struck me most was the amount of Coke drunk by the Mexican family and the amount of juice (drinks in cartons) by the German family.

I think there's a thread around here on that topic.

Then you, sir, are a barbarian.

Dale's (Smorgasbord) Golden Rule: Take all you want, but eat all you take.

Also, the top plate reminds me of my mom telling us to "eat every bean and pea on your plate." (Sounds different out loud.)

I'll reserve my judgement until I have a taste.

But, then again, I'm the guy who eats snails.

That family in Chad looks to have about 1/3 of the food by volume of any of the other families. And none of it was processed (other than what is necessary).

Oh, that's no problem! Because you're going to hurk it all back up anyway.

UT is Bulimic?

It made me think about what my shopping would look like all lined-I think a clearly visible portion would be made up of products containing chocolate.

They neglect to mention that the plate is made of chocolate.

Weekly shopping
 

After seeing that Time Magazine article, thought I'd do the same with my shopping to see exactly how big the percentage of chocolate/bad stuff is. I don't eat at home a lot as for one reason or another, at the moment, I rarely leave work before 8 p.m.

With this shop I made a conscious effort to not buy too much crap. The bright green things in the right hand corner are the Indonesian equivalent of caramel balls (so I'm told). I'm also still getting my head around the non-Western ingredients...I'm not a great experimenter in the kitchen so tend to stick to what I know.

Ever look at the people's stuff in line in front of you, and say, holy shit I could never eat like they do. I would be miserable at their house.

I've had the experience of looking at the person's stuff in front of me and thinking "Hmm, I bet that person is single."

Looking at your groceries for the week I am really surprised at how much of what you have is available in my local grocery. Although I've not seen the pesto Genovese (one of my faves) by Barilla, I also haven't looked for it.

It would be sort of tough for us to do that since we are always "filling in" gaps in the larder with trips to the co-op or corner store.

I'll go photograph the pantry.

:thepain:

Yeah, that's me. Cat food, can o' soup, diet coke, cigarettes, little bottle of shampoo from the travel size rack...

:o

It was the tofu packet in the middle of the shot that did that, wasn't it? :)

After I'd finished taking the pic, I realised I'd left out a couple of things (i.e. cous cous)...Like SN, I'm always topping up as well with regular trips to the supermarket to buy one or two items and usually it's only breakfast and the very occasional lunch/dinner that I eat at home. The rest of the time I'm out so it's only worth buying small portions coz otherwise it goes off before I can eat it (or the ubiquitous ants get to it). BTW, the individual packet of cocoa pops is to ensure some measure of self-control. If I bought a large packet, it would disappear in about a day.

Initially, I was really surprised at how much food from home (and the rest of the world-i.e. the butter toffees are from Argentina WTF???) is readily available here. I did read that there are 100, 000+ expats in Jakarta so there's a big market for non-local foods.

Being single...it's all of that...:) and :o and :thepain: and :D depending on the day....just relishing the thought as I type that no-one tells me how I should slice tomatoes.:)

Nope, not you.

cf:

Butter chicken!
I love that!

My Pakistani/ Indian friends used to make it when we had celebration meals at work. I don't know what the packet mix is like, but their version was hot! :angry:

It always mildly amused me - all the dishes were labelled and every time someone picked the most innocuous soundind dish because they weren't too keen on "foreign food". Snicker.

ETA - that's really mean of me. I shouldn't have written it to sound as if the person deserved it. Generally they didn't - they simply did not enjoy spicy food. It was still funny though. In the same way seeing someone drop their shopping on the bus is funny. Especially when the oranges or potatoes go rolling around and everyone is trying to catch them.

I love butter chicken too. I've found that one needs to be careful with the sauce one chooses (and I may have posted this somewhere previously)...Patak is DIRE. I once made up a lot of my version of butter chicken (which I normally love) with this brand and basically had to get rid of the lot because the sauce was so foul. Sherwood brand isn't bad, but the Curry Makers one is the best in my opinion.

Not sure if I've told this story previously either, but it's on topic, so here it is. Sibling and wife had Indian food at their wedding. I think the labels on a couple of the dishes must have got switched (it was a serve yourself from the bain marie kind of deal). I don't deal well with hot food (which also obviously limits my eating options here) so I served myself a tiny bit of what I thought was vindaloo and quite a bit of the rogan josh (which I believe is mild...the dishes were ordered from mildest to hottest on the serving table). When I got it back to where I was sitting and started eating. I think I managed a mouthful of what was meant to be rogan josh and this was followed by about 6 mouthfuls of naan to stop my mouth burning. To this day I am sure that the rogan josh and vindaloo labels had been switched.

Dairy. That's what you need if you get caught like that again.
Sour cream, yoghurt, milk. Which therefore includes raita or lassi (and probably lots more that haven't come to mind).

Water/ lager/ wine will not help - you need lactose to cool your mouth.

Ended up using the Pesto Genovese today-straight with pasta. I hadn't eaten this for a while and I didn't add anything and found the result filling, but rather greasy. Do you add anything to this pasta/pesto combination?

Outrage After School Tells Mom Her Child’s Lunch Is Unhealthy and Unacceptable
I have no comment.

At that age I only ate cinnamon rolls for lunch.

Butter chicken :drool:

It was due to budget cuts. The regular lunch inspector job was eliminated. The job is now done by a hobo, whose other responsibilities include smoking the cigarette butts left outside by the students.

I could tell you some stories about unhealthy lunches...
They would be serious and factual and would get me the sack if circulated too widely.
But oh my goodness, some parents. And I work in a school in a relatively affluent area.

Generally speaking, our children are very good about fruit and veg. Key Stage One (ages 4-8) get one of their 5-a-day at break time. Banana, apple, pear, satsuma, carrot, tomato, sugar snap peas all depending on season. It's such a joy to watch Reception aged kids eating cherry tomatoes as if they are marshmallows. I've seen more than one child tuck into edame beans from their packed lunch.

And they drink water, as all juice and squash (dliuted fruit drink) is banned. This is primarily because spilling sugary drinks is far more harmful to books and the school environment than leaked water. It also allows the school to accept drinks bottles on every table. Certainly the lower year children have constant access to water. And they chug down the best part of 500ml a day on average. I never drank water as a child. Water was to wash yourself. Even now I only enjoy fizzy water.

Of course once they're out of our hands at secondary school and walk past newsagents and kiosks I'm sure they'll be as unhealthy as I was. A packet of Mint Imperials or Minstrels and a Diet Pepsi for breakfast...

This is all boggling my mind. Really. Just a step away from the drab gray jumpsuits, gruel topped with spongy pink cubes, the Daily Hate, and loving Big Brother.

Oh, and a satsuma, that's like a clementine, right? Smaller than an orange, tastes sweeter, easier to peel, not as much of the white stringy stuff, used to only be able to get them around Christmas?

You can say that again!;)

WHA?!
Children given free fruit and veg is Orwellian?
They do not have to eat it, it's just offered.
I freely admit to them that I hate bananas. I don't tell them that they're the fruit of the devil, but I do make realistic gagging noises.

I just think it's cool that many look forward to playtime because they get fruit and scoff it down as if it was chocolate biscuits.

So why are you making banana bread? (I wondered this earlier but I thought maybe I'd mixed up peanut butter and bananas.) :)

Because [huge martyred sigh] other people like it and I am a people pleaser.
No, really. That's the reason.

We had a whole box of leftover bananas at the end of term (last Friday).
I was all set to claim some for Mum and Dad.
But then they offered them to the Key Stage 2 children (8-11) which was the right idea of course. But it turns out they are greedy banana gobblers and troughed the lot.

When I came home, I made the mistake of mentioning it to Mum.
"I was going to make you some banana bread."
She was so forlorn at the loss of this imaginary bread that I promised to make her some anyway, as long as she bought the extra 'nanas. Oh and for someone who thought my chocolate cake was a bit too bitter... she's laying into it! Three slices today! (secretly pleased)

And I want to make it for the May Fayre because it is a classic and the sort of thing Mums my age remember from their childhood but never make any more.

Ahhhh. Next you'll be makin' carrot cake!

Oh no, I like carrots!
Too much to subject them to cakeiness.

Mea culpa - I will eat carrot cake though.
(just too damned lazy to make it)

Carrot cake is my favorite. especially with that cream cheese icing.

Yum!

And when they put a little icing carrot on the top...

I love carrots.

Carrot cake? WTF?

I want grains and flours in my bread, my cakes, my pancakes. No I don't want blueberries or rhubarb or zucchini or nuts.

Nuts should be nuts, potatos should be potatos, bananas should be bananas. When did it all get mixed together? Who said, ummmmm, this cake is sweet let's add some roots to it and see what happens? ;)

Yeah, but it's delicious.

Beetroot dessert. (Cellar link)
Don't do it.

:rolleyes:

oopsie. I had a browser hang. Teh Cellar usually warns you about double posting like that. Fixeded.