French Vanilla Iced Coffee

We keep reading how our society is so much more obese these days than when I grew up. They often wonder why and blame it on video games.

I’ll go a step further and blame it on fast food. Today I saw a commercial for a chain pizza restaurant touting some sort of double cheese special. Not only does the pizza have more cheese than it should, you get free bread sticks or free mozzarella sticks if you buy a few pizzas. Jeez, why not a free angioplasty for dessert, too?

Let’s see, high carbohydrate pizza with extra cheese, making it extremely high in fat, especially if you get it with meat on it. Then they offer “free” bread sticks which are nothing more than pieces of fried dough, which is nothing more than fatty carbohydrates. Or, you can have mozzarella sticks, which are fried cheese. Yes, fried fat.

The commercials are marketed toward kids, of course.

How about vending machines in schools? I heard about those and was shocked. What the heck are those needed for? Either you eat the lunch the school provides or bring your own. Why are they offering potato chips, candy bars, high sugar sodas, etc.?

I ate school lunch a few times but it was so disgusting I stopped. I’d bring my own lunch, but my mom always made embarassing lunches. Egg salad in a hot dog bun. Fish cakes. We had a choice of milk. Regular milk, that was it. No skim milk but no chocolate milk either, as they offer today.

And, when we came home from school, we went outside to play. Oh sure, sometimes I’d watch TV after school, though I was never a soap opera watcher. I’d watch Mike Douglas or Merv Griffin. I still remember seeing the Village People in 1977! After supper we’d go out and play for a bit, maybe play kickball, walk around, etc. We didn’t sit on our butts and play video games. And, we had no computers either.

There were also very few fast food restaurants around back then. I remember a place called Howdy Beef Burgers, which was a generic equivalent of McDonald’s or Burger King I guess. I remember going there a few times, a cheeseburger was 25 cents and fries were a dime! A family of 3 could literally eat for a couple of dollars.

We didn’t have pizza restaurants like they do now. I remember the first Domino’s Pizza that came into this in the early 90’s. Mom and I ordered a pizza for delivery. It wasn’t there in 30 minutes so it was $3 off the price! It was the first pizza place in the area. Nowadays they’re on every block, right? I only had that pizza one time and we didn’t like it.

Ever walk through the supermarket and look how products are marketed toward kids? All the sugary cereals are at eye level for kids. Reading the ingredients in those cereals makes me ill. SO many carbs, so much sugar, so much garbage. When we were kids they had what, 12 cereals at the most? Now there must be 100 or more and all have some sort of gimmick of sugary this or that and, of course, that free prize, making it a must have for every kid

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The food police are back.

“A U.S. consumer group has sued the operator of the fast-food Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant over the use of trans fat, which can clog arteries and cause other health problems.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest wants Kentucky Fried Chicken to stop using partially hydrogenated oil, which contains the trans fat, or display signs warning consumers of its use.”

Now, they went after McDonald’s a few years ago who swore they would start using healthier oil, but they still have not done so. This week Wendy’s said they would switch to healthier oil as well.

Now, they aren’t just going after chicken. “The Center for Science in the Public Interest said it is planning to campaign against the Starbucks cafe chain because of the increased risk of obesity, heart disease and cancer associated with high-calorie, high-fat products it sells.”

Of course, you don’t think of coffee as being dangerous for you. I know when I began drinking my iced coffee, I checked the information online and found out that a cup has 3 grams of saturated fat but no trans fat, so I cut back a little.

But, did you know one Starbucks drink has more fat than a Big Mac?? “A 20-ounce Venti banana mocha Frappuccino with whipped cream contains 720 calories and 11 grams of saturated fat, and a banana cream crunch bar weighs in at 630 calories and 25 grams of saturated fat. By comparison, a McDonald’s Big Mac has 560 calories and 11 grams of saturated fat.”

Now, I don’t eat at McDonald’s because of the high fat and sodium content in their foods. There is no Starbucks around here but even if there were, I doubt I’d get anything, as I’m not a huge coffee fan and only really like iced coffee.

But, doesn’t this all go back to personal responsibility? Sure, the nutritional information should be more readily available, but when you go into a bar and order a beer, do they make you read a sheet of paper with the information on how the calories are empty, how it will impair your judgment, etc?

Most people, I’d say, are aware of what is good and what is bad for them. It’s ok to have some “bad” food once in a while, just don’t make a steady diet of it. Then again, we’re raising our kids to love this fast food by offering them really cute toys with every purchase. These chains offer salads but a salad with, say, Blue Cheese dressing, has more fat than some of their sandwiches. A salad can be healthy but not topped with all that fat and sodium!

If restaurants were to print up the nutritional information on all their foods, I think they’d lose 1/3 of their sales. When I eat out, I know I’m not eating that healthy, but I don’t do it that often and try to order foods that are lower in fat (no fried) and lower in sodium.

Isn’t what you eat a personal choice?

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I was watching some footage of the 1969 Woodstock concert, and it was mentioned many times how well-behaved the kids who attended were, despite the fact most were stoned on marijuana. 400,000 people were at a large rock concert and it was peaceful.

Fast forward to Woodstock 1994. Tens of thousands of dollars in damage due to the attendees. Several women were molested/raped. People pulled down the light tower and anything else they could get their hands on, simply to cause destruction. Fires burned for days. Why? Well, it was VERY hot and they had vendors set up to sell bottles of water, but they were selling for $10 a bottle. The toilets had been knocked over and destroyed. It rained so the dirt became mud which made for a messy concert. One bandmember of one group was mistaken for an unruly fan and lost several teeth in the melee.

Recently my area held their annual Whaling City Festival in New Bedford, Mass. New Bedford is the city mentioned in Moby Dick as the whaling capital and it is the number one fishing port in the USA. Each year they have a festival for 3 days with amusement rides, live entertainment, flea markes, food, classic car shows and more.

While I’ve never gone, one year they broadcast live and it was the year Marky Mark And The Funky Bunch performed, right before they hit it big. They’ve had other “name” acts who appear right as they are making it big and who have to do the summer festival circuit to make a name for themselves.

The food is horribly overpriced, greasy and cheap. $3 for a bottle of water or cup of soda, $4 for a hot dog, etc. I’m not sure of the prices for the amusement rides, but I imagine it’s not cheap. Vendors show up each year to show their flea market items and most are things you’d never, ever want to buy but for some reason, at a festival, you feel inclined to purchase them.

I lived half a mile from there growing up (it’s held at a huge park and zoo) and you could actually hear the music — loudly — from my house. THAT’S how boisterous it would become.

Apparently, ever year there are minor skirmishes, someone has an extra beer or two and ends up in a fight. This year, on the night before it closed, at 9 PM (it closes at 9 PM) a few teenaged girls got into a fight, and before it was over, 23 people were arrested, 21 boys and 2 girls which consisted of 3 juveniles and the rest all late teens.

They had to call in police presence from other towns, they had to block off a major street just to be able to get police vehicles through due to people parking on both sides of the street to attend the festival.

The last night of the festival they closed it at 6 pm to avoid any issues, and next year they say it will close at 7 PM. I don’t agree with this. Why not control the people who are t here and let those who don’t cause a problem enjoy it until 9 PM? Why make the innocent people suffer?

Why don’t kids have any respect for others these days? Why do people feel the need to fight a the drop of a hat? Why can’t kids behave in public?

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Massachusetts initially passed a law making seat belt usage mandatory. The law was changed and now, if you’re stopped for any reason, if you’re not wearing a seat belt they can ticket you for that as well, but they can’t pull you over solely due to no seat belt.

This week they tried to change it to make it mandatory. Is this right? Isn’t seat belt usage a personal choice? I don’t use a seat belt. Now, I rarely drive on the highway, am usually on back roads and don’t go that fast. Accidents can happen at 20 mph but you don’t often read of someone being ejected from a car at that speed and dying.

Also, being a fat chick, I find seat belts very uncomfortable.

While it appeared to be a sure thing that this would pass, several legislators changed their mind and were against it, and it didn’t go through. Most said they listened to the voters but also many said that police officers simply can’t tell if someone is wearing a seat belt when they fly by.

C’mon, our police departments are struggling due to budget cuts as it is, are we going to take valuable public servants off the streets where they can make a difference and have them play hall monitor, watching for people without a seat belt? Won’t this cause an increase in racial profiling and allegations of police brutality?

It’s my choice to wear a seat belt or not. While statistics say lives are saved by wearing them, the stats also show people who don’t smoke live longer with less illness. Hey, let’s make a law and outlaw smoking. Oh wait, fat people don’t live as long and have more health issues so hey, let’s outlaw Twinkies.

Personal responsibility is a powerful thing.

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Sound weird? It did to me, too, but I heard it on the news this morning. Apparently, as a requirement of graduations, MIT requires that you be able to swim 100 yards. At Cornell, Dartmouth, and Columbia, they also have this as a requirement of graduation. If you fail, you must take a swim class and pass or you do not graduate.

A spokesman from MIT said (this was taken from another website) “We would like to assure that all of our graduates, when placed in a water-threatening situation (car goes into a lake; child falls out of a boat; etc.), that the person is comfortable and capable enough to save themselves and another person.”

Ya know, more people die from smoking each year, but do they require you to be a non-smoker to graduate? More people die from murder each year, but do they require that you be able to fight off an attacker with a gun to graduate?

With so much of our country obese, a requirement that you be physically fit seems almost unfair. You can have a perfect class attendance, be at the top of your class in academics, yet if you can’t swim, you’re sunk?

What’s next, a requirement that you be able to change a tire, because after all, if you have a flat, you can be in a life-threatening situation?

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