My plug in baby has a sweet disposition
Music, Photos | March 27, 2010
I’ve never been much of a concertgoer, but in the past few weeks I’ve been to two, neither of which disappointed. (Can you guess the bands I saw from the title?)
Bigger is not better
Food, Internet, Thoughts | March 26, 2010
I’ve recently been seeing this article posted on Facebook along with comments such as “I’m crying with joy” and “My life is now complete.”
That saddens me.
I suppose it’s a plus side that Starbucks is only testing bigger cold beverages as opposed to jumping straight into bigger everything, and supposedly places like McDonald’s already make these monstrosities (I wouldn’t be surprised), and I know I shouldn’t take anything I see on Facebook to heart, but I think these facetious online comments reflect a much deeper issue. America doesn’t need bigger portions!
Perhaps you wouldn’t expect this coming from me, a lover of food and drink. It’s true, I like stuffing my face occasionally, but mostly I believe in moderation. I may eat a lot, and I may be capable of eating fairly large amounts, but more often than not, I eat very spaced-out portions at intervals throughout the day. I believe in eating small servings of whatever one wants (within reason, and by this I mean mostly healthy food) along with leading an active lifestyle. I constantly bemoan the buffet-style dining halls at most colleges because they serve disgusting junk in heaping amounts, thus leading to overeating. In fact, buffets in general irritate me.
During my trip to China last summer, I noticed that in Chinese McDonald’s restaurants, the sizes labeled as large corresponded to “small” sizes here in the U.S., and the small sizes there would probably be sample sizes here. Why is it that we, in the U.S. especially, feel the need to make everything (including our own bodies) bigger and bigger beyond any reason?
Why is it that we tell perfectly healthy (I realize that eating disorders are an entirely different story), thin women to “eat a sandwich”? Why do we advocate “fat acceptance”? We tell ourselves that we need to mold systems and attitudes to fit societal norms, but what if the norm is, in reality, a social problem? Why do so many of us rely on caffeine, whose status as a drug we like to push to the back of our minds, to make it through the day?
If we all managed our time better, maybe we’d get enough sleep, and we wouldn’t need caffeine. If we all disciplined ourselves to eat less and more healthily and to exercise more, we wouldn’t plus-size ourselves and everything around us. Through downsizing, we might just learn frugality and conservation instead of waste and exorbitance.
Alas, in a perfect world…
Dinner Bento box
Food | March 21, 2010
California rolls, shrimp and vegetable tempura, kai bi, salmon teriyaki, wakame, chuka ika, and salad with bits of chicken and mandarin.
Am I making you hungry? Am I? Am I? Good.