Happy Meals Illegal?

Santa Clara County, in Southern California has passed a law making it illegal for fast food chains to entice kids to eat unhealthy food with toys.

Of course the fast food chains are appealing this decision.  Others think it's a good idea.

Do you think it is a good idea?
Should the government be able to decide what children should eat?
Or should that be left up to the parents to decide?
Is this rational?
Is the government infringing upon the fast food business and their revenue?
What do you think?

Click the link below, watch the video, and then express your thoughts in the comment section!

Where Happy Meals Are Illegal

Carrie Underwood Supports My Restaurant Theory

If you've been following this blog for a while, you've read the two posts that I've written regarding restaurants.  The information in those posts are hardcore facts.  :)


In a recent interview, Carrie Underwood, of American Idol fame, said this:



"I think the hardest thing about what I do is eating [healthy] because we're all over the place. It's fast food, there's aftershow food, you get pizza, whatever.I don't do that. I don't eat out ever."


"Every once in a while I have a day off and I might go to a restaurant — but no aftershow food and I keep my fridge stocked. It's all about making a conscious effort. I don't do anything crazy, but I definitely try to take care of myself."


Carrie could be exaggerating a little bit, and if she is telling the truth she might be a little too extreme.  You never know with these celebrities.  In any case, what she is saying is true, and it is basically what I said in my two posts entitled "Beware of Restaurants".  The truth is that whenever someone else prepares your food, you have no control of how much of the ingredients they are using.  And most restaurants are only concerned about how their food tastes, because that will keep you coming back.  If that means adding buckets of fat and sodium to food to enhance the taste, they do it.  


Fats and sodium can also be used as preservatives as well.  Restaurants wouldn't want to buy foods that last only a day or two on the shelf.  That could mean huge losses of business is slow.


Happy eating

Beware of Restaurants: Part 2

Continuing from the first post, the second reason why you should be careful at restaurants is because of the amount of food they serve.  This is an even bigger reason why there are so many overweight people these days.  Your body was expertly designed, there is no question about that.  It was designed to hold on to vitamins and fats in case food becomes scarce.  The problem is that humans, smart as we are, have found ways to overcome the possibilities of famine.  There is a very good reason for this which I explain completely in my book.  For now, just know that restaurants overdo it when it comes to portions.

On top of adding copious amounts of fat and sodium to foods to make your mouth water, restaurants need to make sure you are satisfied.  And by satisfied, I mean stuffed to the brim.  It makes sense.  They want you to feel as though you are getting your money's worth.  Most of the time you are.  But is it worth it when your waistline starts expanding too?  You may be getting your money's worth at the restaurant, but then you'll have to go and spend more money buying bigger clothes!  Not too cost effective if you ask me.

At the majority of sit down restaurants, there are actually 3 servings of food per dish.  THREE!  That's a lot of food, and it is most likely a lot of sodium and fat as well.  I actually realized this a few years ago when I went to a very upscale restaurant with a friend.  We'd always wanted to go to this restaurant but were always too cheap.  One day we said, "what the hell" and just went.  The food tasted great, but for $40 a plate, there wasn't much there.  Needless to say, I was pissed!  I LOVE food.  I really do, and this was before I was "educated" on what goes into food preparation.  Looking back, yes it was expensive, but it had proper proportions on the plate.  It actually had healthier vegetables and a good protein option as well.  Now, I'm not saying you should only eat at expensive restaurants.  What I am saying is that there is nothing wrong with eating half of your food and taking the rest home to save for tomorrow.  I know it is hard for a lot of people because many of us were taught (actually forced) as kids to eat everything on our plates.  I know I was, but I think it is the wrong approach.  It teaches kids to overeat.  Adults can't accurately judge how small a child's stomach really is.  I'll do a future post on kids and food.

I truly believe that large food portions are responsible for the majority of people's weight problems.  How  much you eat is just as significant as what you actually eat!  My whole philosophy is that you really can eat whatever you want and lose weight, or maintain your weight, but you have to outsmart the natural design of your body.  Think for a minute.  Your stomach is not rigid.  It is elastic.  At any given moment, your body only requires a certain amount of nutrients from food to survive, but if you put more into your stomach than you actually need, your stomach won't disallow it.  It will just expand to accommodate the abundance.  Sneaky.  It is up to you to control how much food you put into your stomach.  I describe some very effective techniques in my book to "trick" your body into actually disallowing further input of food after a meal.  To the point where you won't feel the need for seconds or thirds and you may not even crave dessert!

So maybe I should end this post here and go write some in my book so I can actually get it done!  It's coming along great.  Remember, be smart when you go out for a night on the town!  Eat until you are honestly satisfied, not until you are stuffed.  But don't be too conservative either.  Not eating enough won't do anything beneficial for you either.  You have to experiment and find the balance that's right for you.  Obviously, a satisfying portion for a middle aged woman who weighs 160 lbs is not going to satisfy a 30 year old man that weighs 200 lbs.  In any case, if you feel like the frog looks in the picture above, you've probably overdone it!

Happy eating!

Beware of Restaurants: Part 1

One of fastest and surefire ways to start losing weight and getting healthy is to reduce the number of times you eat out each week.  I know I know.  Restaurant food tastes so good.  I completely agree, but a lot of it is bad for you and there are a few reasons for that.  Dining out has become a staple of American culture.  It's what we do when we want to be social, have business meetings, catch up with friends, etc.  We should do those things, but once again, people of industrialized nations, especially in America, overdo it.....by a lot!!  America actually has the highest rates of obesity for adults and children than any other industrialized nation.  And I think a major factor is in our dining culture.

The major reason dining out causes a problem is the way in which restaurants prepare their food.  It doesn't matter whether it is fast food or a sit down restaurant, when you eat at these places, you are consuming a lot of fat.  Fat is a major ingredient in restaurant food for a couple of reasons.  The first being that fat is how they flavor their food.  Fat tastes good.  That's a fact.  I knew that since I was a young boy.  I was eating bacon one time and the yellow fatty part had so much more flavor than the actual meat. Restaurants have to make their food taste good because that's how they get people to come back.  And adding fat is the magic trick.

To prove this point, I was watching the History Channel the other day and there was a show on called Modern Marvels.  The topic for that episode was fried food.  I caught the episode when they were talking about the fried stuff they serve at carnivals and fairs.  You know, the elephant ears, funnel cakes, etc.  The man talking to the camera was one of the people that fries up all of this garbage and not surprisingly he looked like he weighed over 300 lbs.  He deep fries EVERYTHING.  He even poured spoonfuls of Coke (yes, as in Coca-Cola) into his deep frier.  It clumps together and he took it out and ate it.  And was proud of it.  He said he could fry anything.  I could've vomited right there.  

So, the segment on the deep fried food caught my attention.  Then they moved on to restaurants.  They were interviewing a chef from a diner somwhere in middle America.  I have to admit, what I am about to tell you, I was actually surprised the chef was saying on national television.  Anyways, they showed him cooking over his stove, and he was cooking with lard.  Typical.  As he was giving the details of how he cooked he dropped this gem, "Anything with fat tastes good.  Fat is key".  He actually said this, but the thing is, it really is true.  Fat makes food taste better.  There is just one problem.....it's kiling us.

I am not one of those people that is going to pretend that vegetables taste good, or that I am so disciplined that I never eat this stuff.  Trust me, I have my weaknesses as well.  But our work is to find the discipline to say to ourselves, "enough is enough".  One helping is enough.  To be fair, restaurants are getting better at reducing their food's fat content and providing food labels with their meals so you can at least see the calorie, fat and sugar content, but they have a long way to go.  By cooking for yourself or preparing your own food, you could never add as much fat or sodium as restaurants do.  My whole philosophy is that you can eat what you want, not have to eliminate anything completely from your diet, and still lose weight.  You just have to be smart about it and some sacrifices will have to undoubtedly be made.

I decided to break this post up into 2 posts because when I write, the info just flows out and my posts end up being too long.  I want them to be short and to the point, so part 2 will come in a few days.  In the follow up I'll talk about the kind of fat they use and also how sodium gets worked in there too.