Addiction Commonality

Alcohol, Opiates, Fat and Sugar are all Addictive Substances: this blog is about that "addiction sameness".

Butter Pig Family

* A butter sculpture of a sow and her piglets

Friday, April 27, 2012

McDonald's food mummy creator aims to get sued - Your Community

This Artist wants or rather challenges McDonald's to sue him so to help him along I'm passing on his video...



McDonald's food mummy creator aims to get sued - Your Community

Artist builds 'McMummy' out of hamburgers

"Tomb of the McMummies" creator aims to get sued by McDonalds after building sculpture from of $200 worth of food.
  1. A life-sized mummy made out of ground McDonald's food is making its way around the web this week inspiring many a grossed out reaction, but also, as was the artist's intention, a wider discussion about immortality and food in modern society.
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  3. Ben Campbell, who describes himself as "some kind of artist from West Texas," created the mummy with approximately $200 worth of hamburgers purchased from the golden arched-juggernaut.

    On his Kickstarter page, Campbell explains that his "McMummy" is part of a larger art show he's working which will feature a wide variety of pieces created with and inspired by McDonald's Food.
    Published on Apr 11, 2012 by
    Tomb of the McMummies: An art show highlighting the connection between Ancient Egypt and Modern Society, featuring work created with and inspired by McDonald's food.

    Artwork files: http://www.mediafire.com/?scikjmdc97s9s6i

    Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/977872454/mcdonalds-food-mummy-art-show









Monday, April 16, 2012

TEDxKC - Brené Brown - The Price of Invulnerability - YouTube

TEDxKC - Brené Brown - The Price of Invulnerability - YouTube






 ploaded by on Oct 12, 2010 TEDxKC talk synopsis: In our anxious world, we often protect ourselves by closing off parts of our lives that leave us feeling most vulnerable. Yet invulnerability has a price. When we knowingly or unknowingly numb ourselves to what we sense threatens us, we sacrifice an essential tool for navigating uncertain times -- joy. This talk will explore how and why fear and collective scarcity has profoundly dangerous consequences on how we live, love, parent, work and engage in relationships -- and how simple acts can restore our sense of purpose and meaning.

Speaker: Dr. Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work where she has spent the past 10 years studying courage, shame and authenticity. She is the Behavioral Health Scholar-in-Residence at the Council on Alcohol and Drugs and has written several books on her research.
www.brenebrown.com/welcome

http://www.TEDxKC.org/

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Unless You're In One Of These Two Places, You're Not Getting A Great Steak - Business Insider

Unless You're In One Of These Two Places, You're Not Getting A Great Steak - Business Insider

Josh Ozersky is an award winning food writer and author of 'The Hamburger, A History' and he has a message for you about the steak you're eating:
It's probably not that great.


Ozersky wrote a piece in Time Magazine called 'The Problem With The American Steak', and while it is about how our obsession with steak has made us all blind to low quality cuts, Ozersky mentioned two places where you'll get a cut above the rest.

From Time:
What are you really getting for your money? Not great steak. There is never enough prime beef to go around; much of what gets served in steakhouses is actually USDA “high Choice,” which has less marbling than USDA Prime. If you’re not in New York City or the military, your chances of seeing actual prime are low indeed. But you’ll still pay a premium for whatever it is you’re getting.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/unless-youre-in-one-of-these-two-places-youre-not-getting-a-great-steak 



How Crappy Steakhouses fool their customers


Be forewarned.

Time Magazine's Josh Ozersky has an awesome piece out called 'The Problem With The American Steakhouse' where he goes on a sophisticated rant on how we're getting screwed out of our ideal steakhouse experience.

From Time:
I don’t write this as a food pundit. I say it as a glutton and as an American. Steakhouses are not really restaurants, in the strictest sense: they are closer in spirit to strip clubs or spas, places to which people repair for rites of costly self-indulgence, Dionysian revels in which stressed businessmen or harried wives vent their hypertension.

Ozersky talks about how steakhouses get away with this madness.

There are certain tricks of the trade to make so-so cuts look super:
So steakhouses find ways to trick you into thinking you are getting something precious. They bathe the meat in melted butter, which is good, but as much of a deceit as a padded bra; they buy steaks that have been jabbed with thousands of tiny needles to make them soft; they’ll use MSG or other tenderizers; they’ll call a steak “dry-aged” that has been in their refrigerator for three days (as opposed to a month in a real aging room.)

 
 
 

Sunday, April 8, 2012

The Freedom to Be Fat?

 The Freedom to Be Fat? The Politics of Movie Popcorn, Obama, and the FDA - The Daily Beast

As part of the health-care law, new rules would require restaurants and other food-serving establishments to post nutritional information. Movie theaters were on the original list sent out by the FDA. But, The New York Times reports, after some White House intercessions, cinemas were dropped from the list.

The Freedom to Be Fat? 

The Politics of Movie Popcorn, Obama, and the FDA


The.massive tub of movie popcorn, large enough that an infant could be bathed in, is typical mindless over eating.

One of these days, after we’ve quit worrying about labels like “nanny state” and sorted out the difference between “freedom” and mere selfishness or stupidity, we’ll look back on it as madness.

Until then, we’ll have Democratic White Houses overruling the FDA out of fear of Fox News.

This was the story in The New York Times this week, and it centered specifically on movie popcorn. As part of the health-care law, new rules would require restaurants and other food-serving establishments to post nutritional information. Movie theaters were on the original list sent out by the FDA.

 But, the Times reports, after some White House intercessions, cinemas were dropped from the list.

In a nation up to its eyeballs in fat, nothing is more symbolic of it all than movie popcorn.

A tub of the stuff, a recent study found, is the equivalent of eating, according to a WebMD reporter, “a pound of baby back ribs and a scoop of Häagen-Dazs.”

We’re talking about 1,100 to 1,400 calories and maybe 60 grams of fat. If you don’t follow these things, a person is supposed to take in maybe 2,000 calories a day, and 60 or 70 fat grams.

It’s always been a mystery to me why movie popcorn is so off the charts, since microwave popcorn has about half the calories and fat, or a third even. There must be something about the stuff they inject into the movie version that … I don’t even want to finish writing that sentence.

I know people hate hearing this, and I understand what the comment thread on this piece is going to be full of, and yes, I myself eat popcorn at the movies every once in a while. But let’s face it. The nutrition situation in this country is disgusting.

With the help of website calorielab.com, I list below some meals. See if you can match them to the calorie and fat counts (answers revealed at the bottom of the column):

  • Wendy’s: Big Bacon Classic, Great Biggie fries, large Coke

  • KFC: Three-piece meal, potato wedges, biscuit, large Pepsi

  • Bob Evans: Country spinach salad, meatloaf, Reese’s sundae

  • Cheesecake Factory: Sante Fe salad, Louisiana chicken pasta, Snickers bar cheesecake

  • Macaroni Grill: Shrimp and artichoke appetizer, chicken parmesan, tiramisu

The calorie and fat counts you need to match to these meals are: 1,709 and 100; 1,390 and 57; 3,980 and 105; 3,990 and 154.5; and 1,160 and 51.5.

You’ll note that even the lowest one, the 1,160-calorie meal, has nearly the full day’s worth of fat. It’s the fat in these places that gets you. And the sugar. Soft drinks officially don’t have any fat grams, of course, but that’s just a trick.

I know I sound like the worst sort of stick in the mud when I mention that it’s estimated that our horrible national nutrition costs us $71 billion a year, and things are getting worse.

By a lot of public-safety and health metrics, we’ve improved.

But on food, portions just keep getting bigger, and we just keep expanding with them.

And don’t kid yourself if you’re a cultural elitist and don’t eat at the Cheesecake Factory.

That swordfish that tasted great at that fancy restaurant the other night but didn’t taste quite as good when you tried to replicate it at home?

The difference was simple. A half a stick of butter. Makes anything taste better.

Look, Jack LaLanne I’m not. That Snickers bar cheesecake sounds pretty damn good. And I just can’t live without cheese.

The reason I carry around the (defensible, I tell myself) spare tire that I do is cheese. And to some extent cured meats. And a little ice cream, but that’s in phases.

So I’m not a health freak, and no, I don’t want to pass laws mandating the eating of broccoli.

But I do want us to understand how wrong and simple-minded our definition of freedom is today.

Any time the government appears to be suggesting some program aimed at getting people to do something that is obviously good for themselves—buying health insurance, not eating a bucket of popcorn big enough that two cats could screw in it—a certain number of idiots jump up and cry “Ha! Nanny state! Taking away my freedom!”

This, according to that Times article, is what the Obama administration feared Fox and Glenn Beck would do if it issued too many new FDA rulings.




Well, in one sense, any person is “free” to eat as much Snickers-bar cheesecake as he likes.

But that isn’t actually what freedom means. Actual freedom contains elements of responsibility and recognition of oneself as an actor within this larger thing we try to call society.

Eating anything you want isn’t a definition of freedom. It’s just indulgence. And it says something depressing about our country that it is permitted to masquerade as the former.

I’d love to see the Obama administration defend its FDA a little more strongly. I met and covered FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg when she was David Dinkins’s health commissioner in New York in the early 1990s.

Believe me, that was not an administration in which many people amassed sterling records of service. She did.
Eating anything you want isn’t a definition of freedom. It’s just indulgence. And it says something depressing about our country that it is permitted to masquerade as the former.

But it’s not going to be a liberal presidential administration that changes our habits along these lines, alas.

Government is too discredited in many people’s minds for that.

One of these days, though, McDonald’s or somebody is going to say:

“You know what? We’re done serving super-size portions of fries. 
 We’re going back to 1970s portions.”

And that may start a trend toward more health-consciousness that others will follow.

When it’s corporations taking away “freedom,” people might not mind so much.


Those calorie counts:

The Wendy’s meal is 1,390 calories; The KFC meal is the lowest, at 1,160; the Bob Evans dinner is 1,709; the Cheesecake Factory repast is 3,980; and the Macaroni Grill feast tops out at 3,990.



Source:
Newsweek/Daily Beast special correspondent Michael Tomasky 
is also editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas.

 

Buzzkill: Turkmenistan Bans Booze During ‘Happiness Week’ | NewsFeed | TIME.com

Buzzkill: Turkmenistan Bans Booze During ‘Happiness Week’ | NewsFeed | TIME.com



 Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy,” reads a famous misquote attributed to Ben Franklin. While beer lovers merely wish he said something to this effect (in reality, he uttered something similar about wine), the sentiment has seemed true for centuries. So it may seem ironic that during Turkmenistan’s “Happiness Week,” the government has banned alcohol.

Turkmen president Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has declared the first week in April to be a celebration of the “era of power and happiness” across the Central Asian nation, hosting a series of public shows and sporting events to show off the country’s prowess. And with that, shopkeepers have been ordered to remove all beer and liquor from their shelves.


 To be fair, the official name of the celebration is the “Week of Health and Happiness,” and alcohol fits only one of those categories. The former Soviet republic devotes this week each year to promote personal fitness and well-being. This year, the title has been expanded to include the “happiness” moniker. It’s an ostentatious celebration that has seen authoritarian president Berdymukhamedov take a front-and-center role, reportedly running three miles (five kilometers) to get to a cabinet meeting.