The Economist Lexington reports on The Fat Plateau, highlighting that Americans are no longer getting fatter. This is the point of time when American Healthcare is a core concern of the Americans’ lives and obese might penalize the healthier individuals in a system that pools all their risks together. Either the number of people who can’t quite control their diet has reached the peak of their obesity potential, or that all the complex forces that pushes weight up and down for the general populace has finally reached a point where both forces cancel each other out – at least temporarily.
On food and eating, Mark Vanhoenacker compares the French Laundry, a 3-Stars Michelin Guide restaurant with McDonald’s on moreIntelligentLife. He harps on the interesting similarities between them and points out the curious fact that no one seems to bother about nutritional values of gourmet cuisine:
The mere mention of nutrition in any discussion of haute gastronomie is a cheerless business. Still, Iām certain that my waistline and arteries were affected more by our French Laundry feast (did I mention that the foie gras had chocolate on it?) than the day I had a Bacon, Egg & Cheese Biscuit for breakfast ($4.49 with hash brown and coffee), the Angus Burger meal for lunch ($6.19) and a Chicken Selects dinner ($7.39).
Of course, it’s probably because we don’t have foie gras with chocolate for breakfast as often as we have a Sausage Muffin with Egg. And comparing French Laundry with McDonald’s simply shows how universal our preferences might be whether it’s for expensive gourmet cuisine or plain junk food.
Oh I wanted to feature this article too. Looks like great minds think alike. š
Oh and I am currently reading a book called ‘The End of Food’, of which I might write a review about here. So far in the book I see some vague references to the obesity epidemic in the USA but I think they will showcase it more clearly later on.