Tag Archives: nutrition

January 29, 2013

AspireAssist: The stomach-emptying foodbag that’s officially preferable to exercise

By Jeff Vrabel
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Not entirely sure this will fit in the outbound tube

GateHouse — There are lots of ways to lose weight these days. You could have part of your stomach clamped off, you could binge n’ purge, you could sample any number of delicious chemical medications, shakes, cocktails, injections, pudding cups, synthetic meals or genetically modified livestock. You could also consume fewer calories than you burn off in daily activity or exercise but ha ha come on who seriously would do that it’s just madcap whackadoo crazy talk.

Far less crazy is the idea of the AspireAssist, a new product from the world’s fledgling over-the-counter weight-loss medication industry and the latest magic bullet for the admirably tenacious chunk of the country’s food aficionados who, bravely in the face of hundreds of years of medical science, expert analysis and that kind of good old-fashioned common sense that everyone’s grandpappy apparently had, believe it’s possible to drop pounds without modifying one’s portion size or occasionally going for one of those walks your grandpappy told you about.

The AspireAssist, and I have to reiterate that this part is real, takes the food you’ve decided to eat, since you’re theoretically a sentient adult who isn’t being force-fed a kids’ wagon full of blueberry pies (unless you are, in which case try to escape immediately, forced-pie-eating crimes are on the rise), and vacuums it right out of your stomach before it’s converted to fat and sadness. If it works, the machine makes it so you only absorb about a third of the calories in the food you eat, and I think we can all agree that attaching an electronic machine to your body to slurp out 2/3 of the material you consumed is immeasurably more convenient and uncreepy than not eating it in the first place.

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6 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in GateHouse, Humor Columns, Terrible Things People Eat

June 26, 2012

Deep-fried fair-food cereal: Can it be worse than regular Trix?

By Jeff Vrabel

Pictured: Step 5 of the P90X program cycle.

GateHouse — I am not a big eater of fair food, which you can probably tell, because I am not dead.

I am also not a very big rider of fair rides, which you can also tell, for the same reason. There was an annual fair that came through my Indiana hometown every year — it had to, because it was an annual fair, and if carnies are known for anything it’s their strict adherence to contractual obligations — and I would go every year, because it was either that or play fantasy baseball with my friends. And here is this only time this sentence will ever be written anywhere on Earth: The county fair was the much stronger option for possibly meeting girls. (It was also a much better option for eating funnel cakes, which was the far more likely outcome.)

This happened when I was in my teens, in the mid-1930s according to my hair and posture, back when my unformed adolescent body could do things like consume three consecutive funnel cakes without collapsing into a heap of convulsive stomach-clutching. (By contrast, if I eat one whole glazed donut now I must run four miles to destroy the attendant calories, which is hard, as I don’t really have the two hours to spare.)

And it is a DARNED or possible GOLDANGED good thing, too, because if I were a teen hitting up the Lake County Fair now I would have all manner of newfangled (and newdanged!) fair foods to consume while not meeting any girls. (Can I tell you that I have never understood the idea of fair foods anyway, and not just because of my aversion to throwing up into a Crazy Ball game, but because I cannot fathom why, when you’re going to be hitting 8 Gs in a rattletrap spinny contraption that was built in 1956 and contains most of its original rivets, you definitely want your waist parts jammed full of unregulated dough prepared by undocumented gypsies. God the kids are going to LOVE going to the fair with Fun Dad in a few years.)

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10 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Back Home Again In Indiana, GateHouse, Humor Columns, Terrible Things People Eat

April 18, 2012

The real reason pink slime is so delicious

By Jeff Vrabel

Pictured: New York City school cafeteria

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GateHouse — You hear a lot about pink slime these days, because frankly, pink slime is an a-MA-zing turn of phrase. It’s a writer’s dream, a lyrical, almost onomatopoeic slice of verbal sleight-of-hand that grabs your brain and demands it to conjure up an image, requires you to stop what you’re doing — eating a hoagie, feeding your baby, delivering a baby — to consider it. Frankly as soon as someone coined the phrase “pink slime” it was over, stick a fork in it. Actually that wouldn’t work because sticking a fork in an industrial-sized vat of gelatinous goo wouldn’t be practical and actually probably really frustrating; maybe you should go with a spoon in this scenario. Or an ice cream scoop. Ooh, soup ladle!

We think about pink slime for the same reason most people think about pink slime: Because we are writing “Ghostbusters II.” But also we think about it because with a meaning that evocative, especially in an age where headline value is measured by the level of instinctual milliseconds it takes someone to click on something distracting while they’re supposed to be working and/or driving, it’s perfect. It’s like “swine flu” or “SARS” or “Newt Gingrich” — your brain can’t help but think “THAT SOUNDS JUST AWFUL AND UNELECTABLE YET I CANNOT STOP MY HAND FROM CLICKING ON IT,” and there, before you know it, you’re 12 pages into pink slime material on the web and vowing to never eat beef, or slime, for the rest of your life.

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11 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in GateHouse, Humor Columns, Terrible Things People Eat

April 18, 2011

Denny’s Bacon Maple Sundae: Wait, Denny’s is pushing an unhealthy food product of some kind?

By Jeff Vrabel

I'm bringing sexy back

GateHouse — “You’re welcome for your next column,” my friend Bradshaw said with great satisfaction upon sending on a news story about Denny’s new Bacon Maple Sundae, which, as of press time, had killed 239 people in test markets in Iowa. Ha! I’m just kidding, Denny’s Fans And Lawyers: Most of the victims remain safely in Iowa hospitals and/or makeshift baseball fields having their intestines removed, but doctors are optimistic that in the coming years they’ll be able to subsist on a reasonably stable diet of gruel and pudding, which is, incidentally, the name of the worst breakfast buffet in London.

I suppose we should get out of the way that the Bacon Maple Sundae looks like the thing that my dog did after she devoured that entire box of chocolate Santas that one year, but who are we kidding: Denny’s has already gotten what it was looking for when it began the lengthy, probably international process of launching a dessert product that resembles dog chork: Pinheads on the Internet writing about a dessert product that resembles dog chork.

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Morrissey – Every Day Is Like Sunday

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4 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Humor Columns, Terrible Things People Eat

March 28, 2011

Yes, we are bombing Madagascar, but Cap’n Crunch isn’t retiring so it’s a pretty even week overall

By Jeff Vrabel

I'm ALIVE! Neckless, but alive.

GateHouse — Happy Spring Break, everyone! Hope you all had/are having warm, froofy-drink filled vacations and/or forced furloughs. Sit back, put your feet up and inhale a few more precious moments of clear-eyed fiction before you return to the unfettered horror that has become everyday life, the drive back to which will cost you $2,400 in gas.

Indeed you are probably going to want to return to whatever blissful malt-liquor induced haze you just reluctantly emerged from, because everything out here on planet America is, as is so often the case, worse than ever: Gas prices are ohthisisweird forehead-slappingly high again, the country’s largest corporation, G.E., pays exactly zero in American taxes in an inexplicable tongue-unrolling hilarity which will be humiliatingly justified by most of your boring GOP presidential losers (“Obamacare!” Tim Pawlenty will shout to an empty Elks Lodge), you have to pay to read NEWSPAPERS online now and though your public school hasn’t the remotest hope of “fixing those bus exhaust problems” or “replacing those teachers,” we’ve magicked up several billion dollars of bomb money for that 45th war going on in, I think it was Madagascar? Kazakhstan? Whatever. It’s brown on my globe.

And yet, in an age where daily soul-crushing reports of untethered greed and corporate power drive the nation’s economy, one hideous headline stands apart: They’re getting rid of Cap’n Crunch.

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Blues Explosion – Crunchy

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12 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Culture And / Or News, GateHouse, Humor Columns, Terrible Things People Eat

July 5, 2010

Krispy Kreme + Cheerwine donuts: 85% of your recommended daily allowance of goo

By Jeff Vrabel

I know, it's like you don't even know where to start eating first, right? (Photo: Raleigh News & Observer)

GateHouse — Oh hey, great, I’ll bet you, America’s elitist class of health-obsessed spin-class-overfilling radish-snacking plutocrats and people who purchase “cereal bars” because they might taste a very little like the Pop-Tarts which are sitting on THE ADJACENT SHELF waiting for you to inevitably come crawling back, I suppose now you and your skinny jeans are going to HATE this new idea that just walked into my newsroom, the one where Krispy Kreme donuts are stuffed with Cheerwine-flavored filling. I’ll bet you are going to HATE the idea of glorfing down, Kobayashi-style, liquefied warmed-up donut/goo pluffed to the bursting point with synthetic materials that are designed to taste a little like a cut-rate carbonated beverage. Well SORRY FOR NOT BEING GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU FRESH-MARKET-FREQUENTING SHOE-HATERS, with your homegrown vegetables and biodegradable carts and ability to walk a half-mile without stopping to suffer a few moments of legally defined death. Here’s some frogurt that’ll pair nicely with your contemptuous judging, Horse Spirit.

For the rest of us true-blue, red-blooded and other-color-referencing Real Americans, allow me to celebrate the fact that in this time of great unease, conflict and tension, a fragile peace has been forged between two of the greatest forces in all of North Carolina: Your friends at Krispy Kreme and your enemies at Cheerwine, which is a bargain beverage, though not the kind sprayed indiscriminately at Insane Clown Posse concerts (shout-out to my homes for the Juggalo-fact check, y’all are some straight-up marketing-identification ninjas).

And it has provided, in short, a food in which Cheerwine soda — whose name includes at least two inaccuracies — is injected into a donut and topped with chocolate and sprinkles. USA! USA!

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Download: cC50De

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10 comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in GateHouse, Humor Columns, Terrible Things People Eat

May 6, 2010

Fast Franks: For when you just don’t have time for the full, immersive hot dog experience

By Jeff Vrabel
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No longer will you have to suffer through the maddening inconvenience of microwaving your wiener and bun separately.

GateHouse — You know the scene: You wake up early in the morning, the sunrise sneaking in through the plywood you’ve nailed to the inside of your windows (the government — am I right people?). You’re just waking up, rubbing both sleep and clown nightmares out of your eyes, and you’re thinking, “You know what would be great right now? A hot dog — a mouth-watering, damp, pig-rectumalicious hot dog, a treat that’s as American as Mom, baseball and exploiting tragedy for minor political gain.”

But if you’re like me, at this point you grow grumpy and whiny, because the hot dog is all the way over there in the kitchen, which is like two rooms away. And it’s still morning, way too early to think about finding the hot dog, unwrapping the hot dog (which could result in your coming into contact with hot dog juice, which is unacceptable), zapping the hot dog in your microwave, and then — this is an entirely separate requirement, mind you — locating a bun, opening that package and cooking the two objects separately (if you’re one of those hot-bun people; me, I can be pretty easily convinced either way, which makes me feel a whole lot like Mitt Romney).

Of course then there’s condiments: ketchup obtainment, relish selection, mustard application, etc. etc. And only then, like three hours later, can you finally assemble the whole farce into your long-awaited breakfast feast, except by now it’s getting on in the morning and it’s probably more like brunch, but whatever.

Well, friends, your days of hideous terror are over, thanks to a genius product I glimpsed at the grocery store while trying to steal applesauce: Oscar Mayer Fast Franks. A three-pack of fully microwaveable Hot Dogs In A Bun. MICROWAVEABLE HOT DOGS, IN A BUN, THAT COME IN ONE PACKAGE. And they come in your choice of Beef OR Meat varieties.

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15 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in GateHouse, Humor Columns, Terrible Things People Eat

May 15, 2008

Snickers Charged: Caffeine = good. Caffeine + nougat = A MIRACLE

By Jeff Vrabel

If the package design is any indication, this Snickers is yelling at you.

Island Packet – In my spare time, I do a fair amount of running, mostly because it is the only athletic endeavor at which I have ever exhibited the remotest bit of skill, because — and novices may or may not know this — the sport of running involves putting one foot in front of the other, which is not technically a “skill” so much as it is “something most people are required to do every day anyway, unless they are a salmon, or Rush Limbaugh.”

Athletically speaking, running has a pleasingly low risk factor: There’s no chance you can dribble a basketball wackily off your ankle into resting cheerleaders, no chance for you to swing pathetically at a pitch that already has spent considerable time in the catcher’s mitt, no chance you can illustrate the innovative and surprisingly multi-faceted ways it’s possible to butterfinger a well-thrown football.

And it is for this reason that I am deeply familiar with a bizarre food-related item entitled Jelly Belly Extreme Sports Beans, which are like regular Jelly Beans, except they have the side effect of making you feel very briefly like you could throw a Volkswagen bus across a state park.

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2 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Humor Columns, McClatchy-Tribune, Terrible Things People Eat

February 5, 2008

Ladies and gentlemen, a cheeseburger in a can

By Jeff Vrabel
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I like mine with canned lettuce and canned tomatoes, canned Heinz 57 and canned french fried potatoes.

GateHouse - There are very few things in this life that wouldn’t be better if they came to you in a can.

Think about it – if you could just pop the top and have a thing, how gut-clenchingly great would that be? We’ve already perfected canned meat, sure, but why stop there? Let’s try canned ham hocks, canned salami, canned Baconators, canned Twinkies, canned pants, canned T-shirts and canned small cats you could get at the vet. I could go on for days with this.

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July 3, 2007

Takeru Kobayashi: What God would look like, if He snarfed hot dogs for a living

By Jeff Vrabel

AND I'M PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN, WHERE AT LEAST I KNOW I'M FREE

GateHouse - I hate to throw cold water all over your Fourth of July, but I think it’s only fair to warn you that if this year’s holiday seems a little less magical, a little less wondrous, it may be because Takeru Kobayashi of Japan may not be able to compete in this year’s competitive hot dog eating competition. And as my grandpappy used to tell me back on the farm in Montana, “Boy, I been all around this great big world, I’ve captured rattlers with my bare hands and wrestled a grizz-a-ly bear until the pain was such that he begged me to kill him, but without Takeru Kobayashi eating hot dogs on the Fourth of July I don’t know if I even want to be free from tyrannical British rule.”

(Editor’s note: The preceding sentence is a house of lies. Jeff Vrabel had a grandfather, not a grandpappy; he lived in Indiana, and I’m not sure he ever heard of Montana; he lost each of the 12 times he wrestled a grizz-a-ly bear; and he found the British to be quite droll and amusing, especially Benny Hill.)

Everything else is true though: the world of competitive eating, which, I was told by a number of news stories last week, exists, was being rocked – ROCKED – by the news that 29-year-old Takeru Kobayashi (which translates into English as “Dean”) may have to bow out of this year’s hot dog eating competition because of injury, and by “bow out,” I mean, “sort of make a vague motion of forward momentum that is accompanied by a not-entirely-displeasing sloshing noise”).

Kobayashi’s injuries are serious and weird: He complains of misaligned wisdom teeth, coupled with painful arthritis in his jaw. Doctors think Kobayashi either suffered the injury during a series of grueling, early-morning jogs through hilly roads, or by speed-eating hot dogs for a living.

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Goodie Mob – Soul Food

Download: a61FAl

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3 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in GateHouse, Humor Columns, Terrible Things People Eat

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