The following pricing strategy seems ridiculous to me. Normally it’s “better value” to buy the larger pack of waffles. The waffles are cheaper individually at 14 4/9 pence per waffle compared to 14 4/5 pence per waffle although I would argue that this difference isn’t worth worrying about.
With this price reduction regime the smaller pack of waffles is much better “value”. The small waffles come in at 10p each and the larger pack of waffles requires 11 1/9 of your hard earned pennies per waffle. This, to me, just doesn’t make any sense as a pricing regime.
You possibly thought this website couldn’t get more mundane but I would like to think that I have stooped lower than before!
Only a minor rant today about how effective advertising is and how our views of the world are shaped by what we are told rather than what we try to find out for ourselves using sceptical thinking tools.
Special K is a breakfast cereal made by Kellogg’s. The adverts on television promote Special K as a healthy alternative to other breakfasts and good for losing weight. Most of the adverts have a good looking woman in a red swimming suit enjoying life to the full. The message is clear:
Eat Special K and lose weight, be healthy and live a wonderful life.
As far as I can tell, Kellogg’s are perfectly able to make these claims because they all mean ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. The adverts make no particular claims that would require evidence, so I [grumpily] admit that the adverts themselves are perfectly ok to broadcast.
If you want to find out more about the sexual views and (non) medical ideas of the man who invented Corn Flakes then please look here. I am going to look solely at the information I can find about Kellogg’s cereals.
If you want to lose weight then you need to follow this principle:
Calories in should be lower than calories out.
I’ve explained this before in this communication. Therefore you would expect that Special K has significantly lower energy content that other cereals made by Kellogg’s. Let’s see.
Special K Nutrition Panel
As you can see here, 100 grams of Special K contains 375 kcal. To burn that much energy off you would have to walk/run around 4 kilometres. Now, let’s see what Kellogg’s Original Corn Flakes contains:
Corn Flakes Nutrition
I’m sorry this isn’t the actual panel from Kellogg’s but their website wasn’t working properly and I couldn’t get the information. Let’s read what this information tells us.
CORN FLAKES HAS FEWER CALORIES THAN SPECIAL K
Holy Cow! How does that happen? The adverts tell us one thing but in reality the truth is completely the reverse. I’m pretty sure that Special K tastes like cardboard too, so perhaps everyone should just swap to standard Corn Flakes. In fact when we look at the energy content of other Kellogg’s products we can see that there isn’t a great deal of difference in energy terms.
Crunchy Nut NutritionSpecial K with extra crap
So, 100 grams of these cereals are all around 380 kcal. It doesn’t make a great deal of difference which one you eat. However, I am not sure of 100g of Corn Flakes LOOKS the same amount in a bowl compared to 100g of flakes with extra sugar coating. It could be that you will fill the bowl to the same level but end up eating many more calories because the coated flakes are more massive. This is a test I might do one day.
Also, I am not commenting on the extra sugars you will eat if you have sugar coated cereal. This is not a communication about how healthy a particular cereal is, it’s about the energy content and the impression given by advertising.
So, what should we learn from this? I think this shows clearly that advertising works extremely well at forming opinions about certain products and their effects on us in terms of health. ALL advertising claims should be taken sceptically until you have investigated them for yourself. Don’t dismiss or accept things straight away. It is perfectly OK for you to think or say:
That sounds interesting but I’ll form my own opinion once I’ve investigated it a little more.
In fact, that is generally a good approach to life itself.
One more thing. Anti-aging creams can legally ONLY advertise themselves as anti-aging if and only if they contain a form of UV sun protection. There is little evidence that any of the other stuff they put in creams will protect your skin from the 3/5/7 signs of aging.
My last day in Washington DC! I knew I’d be leaving for the airport at around 19:30 so I had all day and plenty more to see. Another sunny day in DC and slightly warmer than the last week or so.
Got up, had coffee and then prepared for another run. I hadn’t seen the World War II memorial so far and that was my destination for today.
On the run I saw a coast guard helo. My helicopter total for the trip was as follows:
Black Hawk
Marine One
Coastguard
Park Service UH-1
Back to Georgetown and time to get ready for a busy day. I had lunch organised at midday and so I wandered in to town at about 11. I was planning to get the metro from Foggy Bottom and go two stops to McPherson Square but I had plenty of time and so kept going on foot. I got to 14th and Eye just on time and walked a little further to The Hamilton bar for lunch.
After a Hamilton burger for lunch I walked towards the Newseum. I hadn’t quite decided whether to go there or the National Museum of American History. I happened to wander past the FBI Headquarters building and didn’t blag my way in to that place. I figured if I wanted to see inside I could try and get arrested somewhere, although that would probably not be worth the effort. I like my body cavities as they are!
I saw a sign indicating Ford’s Theatre and so I walked to see that. There were many many school children waiting outside. I understand, it’s the place of assassination.
I decided that the Newseum would wait and so I walked to the Museum of American History. Half of the museum was shut for the year to be refurbished which was a shame. I saw the original flag that inspired the lyrics to the Star Spangled Banner and some pieces of American History. Again, much like the Natural History Museum, I have a feeling that we do museums far better than the Americans and it all seemed a little “not quite the nation’s museum” even though it was.
I headed for the National Aquarium close to the White House and waited in line to be searched and pay my entry fee of USD10. I’m glad it was only a small amount of money as the Aquarium was pretty rubbish. The London Aquarium is far superior. Apparently there is a branch of this aquarium in Baltimore and I would hope that one is much better. Maybe another trip.
It was time to start wandering back to GT. I was feeling a touch peckish and thirsty and I wanted more coffee so I found a bar on M street in GT. Mr Smith’s saloon fed me coffee, buffalo chicken sandwich and a Goose Island beer.
Much refreshed it was now cupcake time. There are two shops in Georgetown that feature in their own TV shows on some small time channels. I though it might be worth buying a cake from there however, the queue was around the block and I don’t like cupcakes enough to wait that long. Instead I had a muffin and coffee from Saxbys.
Packing my suitcase in Winfield Lane was methodical and calming and then I played some guitar hero Metallica while I waited for Rich to come home from work. The journey to the airport was uneventful and the flight home was boring. I tried to sleep but don’t think I managed it.
It was great to see my boys and spend the next few days with them in the UK.
No, not the town in Kent. What I mean by sandwich is what most of you would think about straight away. Food! Now, I like bread and I like fillings in bread and hence I like to eat sandwiches. However, I am rather fed up at being made to feel as though I am greedy when sandwiches are on offer. Here’s an explanation.
At Home
If I make a sandwich at home I will use four slices of bread and make two sandwiches, or in proper terms, two rounds of sandwich. A round of sandwiches is what I would call a sandwich and has two pieces of bread.
In A Shop
If I buy a sandwich in a shop it normally comes in a triangular prism package and contains one round of sandwich cut diagonally with all the filling showing. This makes it look like there is a lot of filling, but there isn’t, it’s all pushed towards the middle of the bread and hence on display. It is socially acceptable to buy one of these packets but not two, that would be greedy but equal to what I would make at home.
At An Hotel
If you eat sandwiches from a buffet then they are normally single rounds of sandwich cut into quarters.
Now, I will grant you that the filling tends to be a little thicker and substantial that the supermarket offering but there is a social awareness problem when deciding how many quarters to put on a plate (or how many “returns” to the buffet are acceptable). If I eat two rounds of sandwich at home and I expect to be able to eat the same amount when out then I will put 8 quarters of sandwich on my plate. This looks greedy and also restricts what other items can also be placed on the buffet plate. It would seem socially acceptable to place four quarters on a plate (although this looks a little greedy being a male ape I tend to get away with this). This means I need to make two trips to the buffet table to ensure I have eaten what I would consider a polite amount. Socially this a mine-field and deserves more academic in-depth study. The social pressures of buffet eating should be considered when designing the food and perhaps, one day, mankind will break through this glass ceiling of the sandwich/buffet trip dilemma.
Snuck into a Costa Coffee this morning to while away the time before attending a course. This was at the Costa inside Tesco’s in Faversham.
Now, I’m quite impressed with Faversham really. It has a crazy road system and a lovely provincial feel and look. Very nice and a little weird! Perhaps this phenomenon is just a Kent thing but they were selling super size biscuits in Costa! They are your classics; a bourbon, a Jamie dodger and a custard cream.
This picture tells you all you need to know! For scale, the bourbon is about 13cm long. Crazy times. I’m pretty sure it’s a ploy to make the world (or at least Faversham) a fatter place.
WW and I went for a meal last night (14 August). It was the first time we had used a proper babysitter and left the kids at home, sleeping soundly.
We headed to Pizza Express in Maidstone as WW wanted a goats cheese something. She has been needing goats cheese for a while and supermarket bought stuff doesn’t make her taste buds flower!
I ordered whatever I wanted but was shocked when I came to enter this information into my food tracking app.
Il Padrino Pizza – 922 kCal
Chocolate Glory – 691 kCal
Glass of red wine – 191 kCal
Shared tomato and mozzarella salad – 243 kCal
My dinner came to 2047 kCal. This was quite a shock. Even with a 10km run in the morning I was way over what I consider my daily calorie allowance! Much more running going to happen over the next few weeks to normalise my intake!
I accidentally ate four meals on Monday 13 August. WW and I took the boys to Mote Park in Maidstone and let them play in the playground. After we fed the ducks at the lake we went and ordered some food. My order was as follows:
Two sausages and chips and a sausage roll and chips please.
My intention was to buy chips with two sausages for #1 and the the sausage roll and chips was for #2. What I received was two plates of sausages and chips and an adult plate of sausage roll and chips. All in all far too much food for my children to eat! Obviously I just helped out and ate the adult plate of food. As it happens WW and I had already planned what to eat later in the day and so I had:
breakfast
lunch
accidental tea
dinner
This is a little extreme and when I looked at my calorie count for that day it was 3041 kCal. Even with a run I was over my daily target.
Well, this was a surprise! WW went down the shop to get some toppings for rice crispy cakes. This is what she brought back!
I am just hoping these aren’t the jewels used for vajazzling. It all seems rather wrong to me! Now if I say they are Australian I’m sure that’ll make perfect sense.
Recently the WW and I have been on a bit of a health regime. This requires us to not worry about supplements (mostly rubbish) and just keep track of food and exercise. It’s been a while since I have felt physically fit and at a healthy weight. There have been a number of times when my mass has been measured by a health professional and they’ve said that I was a bit over-weight. Yes, that was true, but I was also quite aware of it.
So over Christmas I decided to copy the WW and I installed an app on the iPhone that tracks my calorie intake. I can scan the bar code on foods and select the correct amount and then try to keep to a particular daily calorific maximum. This I have done reasonably successfully and have now reached a healthy mass of 82Kg (if you want my weight then just multiply by your local value of g).
More recently because of the change of official time to British Summer Time (something I am not convinced has any particular basis) I can also take advantage of the light evenings and go running. I should point out that my version of running is really just a jog. The biggest problem with this is that I also take the dog. He doesn’t really understand that I just want to go at a steady pace for 30 minutes or so and he runs off to sniff other dogs or just plain gets under my feet. Anyway, the upshot of the last month of running is that I can comfortably run about 5km in just under 30 minutes and am doing this about 4 times a week. A secondary bonus is that the dog has lost a little bit of his winter fat and is now also looking much healthier. See this Fooyah communication for the route I tend to run.
And so to the crux of this Fooyah communication. If you are calorie counting you need to decide whether certain foods are worth it. For me, cake is plainly not worth the calories. My enjoyment of cake per calorie is particularly low. To give me a sense of “is it worth it” I use the international SI unit of food expectation/enjoyment which is a finger of Cadbury’s Twirl. One standard Twirl finger is 115 kCal. Now whenever I am faced with a choice of snacks or foods to eat I balance it with the Twirl. Is the energy content I am about to eat greater in enjoyment to the Twirl or less. If the answer is less then there is a lower chance of me actually eating that particular food. For example: a small iced sponge cake from Tesco is 150kCal. Compared to the equivalent in Twirls the enjoyment is much much lower and so the cake should not be eaten. A banana is about 80 kCal and so although not really tasty is quite cheap in terms of calories and so worth eating. One teaspoon of Nutella is 81 kCal and so not really worth it but is a nice treat if I feel like it.
The rest of my life is probably going to be a calorie counting feast of Twirl decisions but I can live with that if it keeps me on the right side of healthy.
I only buy and drink wine from regions I have visited
Fortunately I have been to Bordeaux and other great wine producing areas but I just decided about a year ago that I might as well impose a restriction just for the hell of it. Should someone offer me wine then I will drink it from anywhere. For me, this rule just makes choosing wine a little more interesting.
Places I can’t drink:
South America
North America (apart from Florida)
Asia (apart from Hong Kong and Singapore)
Africa
Individual areas that I can drink:
Most of France
Bits of Spain
Cyprus
South East Australia
Southern Portugal
That’s about it. Hey, as the Great Sheldon said “if your going to have foibles you might as well make them bizarre”.
I’ve given up treats such as chocolate, crisps and donuts bought in by other department members.
Essentially I’m not bothered by crisps but I do like chocolate. I have decided to give up all “treats” for around six months or so. I won’t eat them at home or buy them. If they are offered as food at a friend’s house then that is fine.
Really this is about losing (or not gaining) weight and proving I have some willpower. Now I just need to promise that I’ll play the PS3 a bit more.
I’m slightly worried. For the last 24 years I have preferred mayonnaise to salad cream. This has even gone so far as to be happy eating a steak with mayonnaise. I thought this meant that I was sophisticated and grown up. Having mayo seemed like the continental, better thing to do. I was happy with this for many years and always shirked the idea of having either salad cream or, worse, tomato ketchup. It is only since I have been with my wife that I have grown to accept that HP brown sauce is ok (but only on breakfast).
But all of a sudden things have changed.
Over the last month I have wanted salad cream with my chips and on the side with my pizza. I’ve not had steak yet so I don’t know what will happen then (it won’t be gravy though, that is even more wronger than ketchup). Does this mean I have regressed? I still feel intelligent and sophisticated (you might not be able to tell from this blog) but I like and even yearn at times for salad cream. I am worried, what if my other tastes revert back to a time when I was spotty and uncomfortable? Will I suddenly have the urge to buy a Madonna album or jump on a push bike and just cycle around all day? I never hang out at the corner shop with mates smoking and drinking but is that about to happen? Like headlines that are questions the answer is no. I am going through a blip and I can blame it on my wife. Her recent pregnancy hormones have infected me somehow and now I just have to wait for my senses and tastes to return to normal.
If you are interested it’s Heinz Salad Cream, Hellman’s Mayonnaise and HP Brown Sauce. Never ever any type of ketchup.
The short answer is: you don’t get it messy in the first place
A sponge or cloth is not very good at getting the food detritus from the sieve. You wipe and just move the particles around. A running tap might work if the upturned sieve is washed through with running water but you have to ensure that the whole surface area has been douched. The bristles from a brush might be pushed through the grill on the sieve, but this is somewhat tiresome and tends to move dirt from one place to another.
Ultimately it is a lengthy job and not one that need be done. Drain the veg with the saucepan lid. Maybe use coffee filter inserts but never use a sieve. It’s just not worth the cleaning effort. That’s why you never see them in Star Trek.
This is the vegetable plot. I had thought it looked better in the photo than in real life but I might be wrong. Anyway, I don’t like gardening but have found myself tending to the plants on a regular basis. The plants are: beetroot, carrots, lettuce and pak choi. Hopefully my son will enjoy harvesting our goodies and eating them. He seems to be in an apple mood at the moment!
I also have six tomato plants on the go in pots. There are some toms appearing and so hopefully soon my family can eat those. Lots of, very slow, fun. Not quite PS3 really.
Apart from using a knife (or not) and cutting up an apple I can think of predominantly two ways of eating an apple. This does matter because one way is correct and the other is not so correct.
Circumferential or the Segment method?
A circumferential eater will take a bite, rotate the sphere using the core as the axis and take another bite. This will result in a curve of apple exposed around the great circle of the apple. Then another line of bite is taken from each end (assuming that the eater has a big enough mouth to bite to the core)
A segmental eater takes bites out of the apple from stalk to opposite pole. This results in a segment being eaten and then the apple being rotated to start the process again.
The problem is exposure of the flesh of the apple to the air to turn brown and this needs to be minimised. In the segment method the area exposed for significant time is constant. For the circumferential method the area exposed increases with time.
Which leads to:
The analysis shows that if your bite radius is greater than 0.140 of the radius of the apple then you should eat in segments. Apart from small mammals the bite radius is going to be more than 14% of the apple radius, unless there is a huge apple variety waiting to be discovered.
This post was necessary because every time I eat an apple my wife tells me I am eating it the wrong way.
