Monday, March 2, 2009

My mini-adventure with the worst food in America

Yep, that's right. Last night I went to Baskin-Robbins and ordered up the largest Oreo shake they have. Men's Health, a magazine, recently voted this shake the worst thing you can eat in the US. You can find the jaw-dropping nutrition data here, though you'll have to scale all numbers up by ~ 50%.

Why did I order this monstrosity when I knew it was bad for me? I just wanted to see what eating that much crap would do to me - sort of my own scaled down Supersize Me experiment.

Firstly, it tastes pretty good for about the first half, but it's sweet and rich so I had trouble making it all the way through. Secondly, dairy aggravates my allergies so some of my suffering is related to that. I think I drank the whole thing in about twenty minutes which is incredible. I ate more than a day's worth of calories in twenty minutes. Holy moly! Thirdly, I felt like throwing up after I finished it, but I managed to keep everything down. It's nearly 12 hours later and I still feel like throwing up. Fortunately, I have all day to detoxify.

Now I understand how Americans got fat. We eat this kind of stuff all day, every day without really batting an eye. The law requires that nutrition data be available, but I think it should be prominent so that people can make informed decisions. I don't think this food should be outlawed, but if enough people learn how bad it is, they'll buy less of it and those who don't care still have an opportunity to gorge themselves.

Kids, don't try this experiment at home.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I think it's also because of all the processed food, with the additives, preservatives, "natural and artificial" flavors and colors, etc etc.

I remember going to the supermarket in Ithaca and wondering why juice can't simply be juice...

Jeremy said...

Yeah, I've never understood how it's cheaper to add more artificial stuff than just to use the real thing. I think it's because a lot of the additives come from heavily subsidized food like corn.

I've got a juicer so I can make my own. It tastes much better than anything you get in the store.