Food follies

While waiting in the cafeteria line, I glanced at the packets of condiments on the counter. I'm all for truth in labeling but I found it odd that the Hellman's mayo packet was announcing, with a big zero in a noticeable red circle, that it had zero grams of carbs. I don't know about you but I was never really worried about the carb content of my mayo. Fat content, you betcha. Carb content? Not so much.

Apparently the packaging design people think consumers are going to say "Wow! I'm worried about my diet so I'll choose this awesome mayo with NO CARBS! Slather it on!"

I can't really blame the food companies for packaging stupidity. People want to have their cake and eat it too (pun intended) when it comes to eating junk food. They'll grab on to anything to make themselves feel better about eating crap (myself included). I've said before that I think Snack Wells and their ilk have contributed to the obesity epidemic in this country. Somehow, people have gotten the idea that they can eat as much low-carb crap as they want without gaining weight. Trans fats are the new carbs - every snack food that can get away with it screams about having little or no trans fats. Guess what - if you fill up on junk (with or without trans fat, low carb or otherwise) - you're going to gain weight. There is no such thing as a free bag of chips.

On the subject of blaming everyone but ourselves (read: food manufacturers and fast food companies) for our obesity, I read an article this week about an interview with supermodel Gisele Bundchen. She was discussing the recent trend of fashion shows refusing to allow underweight models to participate in runway shows. There have been recent accusations that the use of too-skinny models is leading to anorexia. She said it's not the fashion industry that causes anorexia, it's screwed up families that cause anorexia. Although I'm not ready to let the fashion industry off the hook completely, she has a point. But the best point she made was that modeling is all about genetics. There are certain people (like herself) who have the right genes to be a model. If you have to starve yourself in order to have the "right" body, you don't have the right genes and maybe you should think twice about your choice of profession.

The same is true of professional sports. Although there are legions of young boys who want to play in the NBA, there's about a million to one chance that any one of them will get there. For the most part, they won't have the genetics. Regardless of talent and no matter how hard you work, if you aren't very tall, you aren't going to be a professional basketball player. Play the game for fun but make sure you do your homework - don't count on that multi-million dollar contract to support your family.

I guess the bottom line of this post is that people don't like facing the simple fact that you can't have everything you want and sometimes the things you want aren't good for you. You can't eat all the junk food you desire and be healthy (or thin) - even if the junk food you eat has no trans-fats or carbs. You can't be an NBA superstar unless you're born with the right combination of genes. If you need to starve yourself to death to be skinny enough, you shouldn't try to be a runway model.

And if you don't like the media images of too-skinny models, stop buying clothes from designers who promote that kind of body image. Stop buying the magazines that sell those clothes. Or do what I do, refuse to go clothes shopping until you have nothing to wear (except horrible 1980's era suits with shoulder pads). It doesn't help anything but it gives me something to bitch about.

Picky, picky

In the two spare seconds that I have to post today I decided that I had to write about some coffee related topics.

First there was the woman in front of me at Starbucks who ordered a venti, no foam, soy latte at 140 degrees. Seriously - who orders a drink at a specific temperature? What would happen if your latte was only 135 degrees? Or - god forbid - 143 degrees! And who orders a "no foam" latte? The whole point of a latte is the foam. It's NOT a latte if it doesn't have foam. It's espresso with warm milk. Yes, I'm a Starbucks geek.

I'm sure there are people roll who their eyes at me when I order my 1/2 decaf grande non-fat latte. They probably think "What's the point of getting decaf? Isn't the whole point of coffee the caffeine?" They also probably say "Who puts non-fat milk in their latte?" Or something like that. People are so judgmental (she says without a hint of irony).

The other thing that made me go "Hmmm" today was an advertisement I saw on the bus for a coffee grinder/brewer that also gives you the weather. Why the weather? Why not the traffic report or headline news? The tag line for the ad is "I could have told you to wear snowshoes." Seriously - does anybody really need a coffee maker to tell them that it's snowing?

It's the Best Post Ever!

I've really been struggling with this post (which means I've typed and erased about 100 lines of text - one at a time) because I feel like my first post of 2007 should contain profound wisdom, thought-provoking ideas and/or really funny stories. But the pressure is too much for me so we'll all have to settle for my usual ramblings.

It's all about expectations and mine have always done me in. I'm a dreamer; my imagination and hopes unconstrained by reality. But when fantasy collides with reality, reality almost always wins. That's why I stopped trying to have the "best holiday ever" every year. (For those of you who have Spongebob fans for children, you might now be hearing that catchy ditty Best Day Ever from a recent episode. It'll probably be stuck in your head for a week or two. You're welcome.)

When I was single, I was always worried about being alone on New Year's Eve. Or worse, being a third or fifth wheel with my hooked-up friends who pitied me and let me tag along. When I was living in New York the pressure was especially intense. Partly because everything in New York is especially intense. Partly because I was there in the late '80s when everything had to be bigger and better and more fabulous all the time. But mainly because I had reached an age where I expected to be married or at least on the road to being married. I hadn't yet met anyone I was remotely interested in marrying (unless you count this guy but since he was never interested in me I don't think he counts) but that didn't stop me from feeling like a failure at the tender age of 23. Each new year that came and went in my mid-20s was a harsh reminder that my reality wasn't matching my fantasy.

I read recently that if the map doesn't match the ground, the map is wrong. Like my favorite gender-difference example - if the clothes don't fit a man, he gets a tailor but if clothes don't fit a woman, she goes on a diet - I always figured that if my map didn't match the ground, I just wasn't reading it right. I thought I should be married by 25 and if I wasn't, it was my fault. It never occurred to me that the goal itself was screwy. Of course, once I stopped expecting to find my soul mate, I found him. And it was in a place and at a time that was totally unexpected. No pressure. Funny how things work.

So now I just try to take the holidays in stride and not expect too much. We try to keep things simple - we don't need grand plans and big parties to feel like we've celebrated. Since I learned to manage my expectations for the holidays, I've avoided putting pressure on my family to meet my unrealistic fantasy and everyone has a much better time.

Now if only I could manage my expectations about keeping my (unrealistic) New Year's resolutions . . .

Travel blogging

Apparently traveling dampens my desire to write. So much for my dream of being a travel writer. Right now I'm my room at the JW Marriott on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C. Nice hotel but I'd rather be at home with my family. Anyway, I figure that I should just force myself to write. My worry when I force myself to write is that what I write will be boring or weird or just plain bad. In our house, when you're afraid of something, you have to do it anyway. So here I go.

On the flight to D.C. I sat next to a 6 foot 4 inch Marine on his way to a conference on new helicopter weapons systems. He's one of the guys responsible for quality control in the aircraft the Marines buy. In my job, when something gets f'd up, I'm prone to saying "Well, nobody died and nobody went to jail so let's not get freaked out." So here's this guy who has a job where when something gets f'd up, people actually do die.

He's new to this particular job and said he still can't get over the fact that the Marines had a contract to pay $9 million for an instruction manual for just one part of the weapons system on one particular helicopter. Then the manufacturer said, "Well, some things have changed so now we have to charge you $18 million for that manual." So tell me - who the hell buys a multi-million dollar helicopter that doesn't actually come WITH the instruction manual?

I usually sit next to interesting people on flights between Chicago and D.C. The last time I was here, on my flight home I sat next to this guy's sister. Ok, so she was kind of an indirectly interesting seat mate - but actually she was really nice and equally as chatty as me. Which is hard to find. Come to think of it, the Marine was particularly chatty too - surprising since I tend to think of Marines as the strong, silent types. Funny how generalizations tend not to fit when you actually talk to someone you've generalized about.