Category Archives: Health

TGIDST: Daylight Savings Time and the Fortunate Few

Daylight savings not just so farmers have an extra hour of sunlight in their workday. It’s not just based on needing to use less candle light (energy). Daylight savings time helps some other people, too.

What about the bar owner who can serve Jager bombs for an extra intoxicated hour? Daylight savings time helps him make more money in the fall.

What about the posturing apartment manager who can leave a memo on the elevator reminding us to set our clocks back and have a pleasant weekend? Daylight savings time helps him look like he’s doing a good job.

What about the fortunate ones like me who never set an alarm, but choose to wake up with the sun? Daylight savings helps us get started earlier.

But since very few people can empathize with a shrewd bar owner, or an incompetent apartment building manager or a guy who proudly quit his day job, why are we still doing daylight savings time? Studies show it actually causes a 1% increase in energy consumption a decrease in public health.

What if daylight savings time was a choice? But instead of setting your clock back, how about just scheduling breakfast back an hour?

Could there be an easier way to decrease energy consumption and improve public health?

I bet there are several lobbyists out there who have some ideas.

McDonald’s Egg White Delight: Are They Yoking?

My Thoughts on Egg McMuffins Made with Egg Whites

I get asked all the time about McDonald’s Egg White Delight. Most often, it sounds like, “Yo, Do you care that McDonald’s is using your phrase ‘All yolks aside’ to promote their egg white McMuffin?” My response is always the same. I laugh.

McDonalds Egg White Delights are def NOT noyoke. They’re not even worth eating on a rest day. Here’s why McDonald’s Egg White Delights are not healthy and are no different from all other McDonalds products: Junk.

Yes, McDonald’s Egg White Delights are void of egg yolks. Yes, eating eggs without yolks is fewer calories and nearly void of any saturated fat or cholesterol. And yes, if you’re going to eat McDonald’s breakfast anyway, opting for egg whites is probably a better choice. But the eggs themselves come from highly processed, caged hens. Then, before they get to your sandwich, they’re microwaved and doused in non-stick spray made liquid margarine (a mix of several hydrogenated oils). Alas, while the egg white on the Egg White Delight pretty bad for you, it’s probably the healthiest part of the entire sandwich.

The meat and cheese on the Egg White Delight make the seemingly healthy egg white guilty by association. The cheese acts as the treated, colored and processed salty glue that holds everything together. Cheese that’s pure and fresh isn’t hardly healthy, let alone this crap. The meat, similarly, is a hardly meat. Chemically enhanced with phosphates, nitrates and other preservatives, the Canadian bacon struggles to serve any nutritional purpose. Put the “meat” and “cheese” together and you get a tref, colorful, salty middle layer. And that’s just what’s in-between the English muffins!

The English muffins, seemingly the most innocent part, include a secret weapon. No, not gluten or enriched bleached flour, even though they’re in there and are a formidable contributor to American obesity. McDonalds’ English muffins are loaded with high-fructose corn syrup. Why? McDonalds injects HFCS into its muffs to make them sweet and, more importantly, addicting. Yes, HFCS is addicting and causes obesity and general laziness. Most normal, store-bought muffins, however, have no HFCS.

Conclusion: McDonald’s is still McDonald’s, not NOYOKE

So to answer the question I get all the time, I don’t care that McDonald’s uses “All yolks aside” in their ads for the Egg White Delight. It’s not a threat to me or my brand. It cannot compete with the quick and easy scrambled egg whites with kale, apple cinnamon quinoa, or any other breakfast you can make in five minutes. Healthy breakfasts never include chemical-laden egg whites, highly processed meats or cheese, or HFCS-enhanced English muffins. That stuff is NOT good for you. And that’s noyoke.

The Problem with Gluten Free

Eating gluten-free will help you lose weight. It will help you find more energy. And it will help you wane crappy Western illnesses.

So avoiding food with gluten, like bread, is a good thing. White or wheat.

But avoiding food with gluten does not mean seek out gluten-free products.

Gluten-free products are just that. Products.

A giant bag of gluten-free pasta is technically gluten-free. If you’re a marketer, why not put a gluten-free sticker on it? It will sell better than one without.

But, will a giant bag of gluten-free pasta help you lose weight, find more energy or wane crappy Western illnesses? Not so much.

Weird Peanut Butter

There are two kinds of peanut butter out there. Take your pick. No, not creamy vs chunky. Not Skippy vs Jif. It’s simply good vs bad. Or as my dad likes to call it, weird peanut butter vs normal peanut butter.

Normal peanut butter, like Skippy or Jif, has a long shelf life. It lasts because of oil hydrogenation, a process very simply illustrated here. Hydrogenated oils cause:

Increase LDL (bad cholesterol)
Decrease HDL (good cholesterol)
Increase risk for heart disease, diabetes and cancer

Weird peanut butter, like Trader Joe’s brand, has a short shelf life. It requires refrigeration. It’s ingredients are singular: Peanuts. And sometimes salt. But never hydrogenated oils.

So that’s why I like weird peanut butter.

Is that so weird?

Hello, Irene

Big drug dealers have a simple strategy. Sell a highly addictive, high-margin, readily available product in mass to low-income neighborhoods. Example: Frank Lucas, heroin, and Harlem, NY. He claimed to earn $1 million dollars per day.

Big Food has a simple strategy, too. Sell a highly addictive, high-margin, readily available product in mass to low-income neighborhoods. Example: Irene Rosenfeld of Mondelēz (formally Kraft Foods), Oreo Cookies, and Mobile, Alabama. She makes $28 million dollars per year.

That we perceive the former at any differently than the latter makes me want to do drugs.

Good thing there’s a 7-11 across the street.

The solutions that never go on sale

Free isn’t really free. And free is often a bad pick between the paid alternative. We know this.

But what about when it comes to fixing problems?

Have frequent heartburn?

P&G’s solution: Buy Prilosec OTC and take it every 24 hours for your entire life.
UL’s solution: Eat more alkaline foods.

Having frequent anxiety?

Privately practicing therapist solution: Schedule time with her every week.
UL’s solution: Exercise rigorously for 30 minutes, 4x per week.

Need to lose weight?

Sensa’s solution: Buy their white powder and sprinkle it on your food
UL’s solution: Employ both prior recommendations

So free isn’t always the poor choice. Maybe it’s only when it’s the easy one.

Cruising altitude

What do you do every morning on autopilot? Drive to work? Your morning shower routine? A 30 minute run?

Having to figure these things out every morning would be exhausting. New route to work every day? Getting cleaned up in a different order every day? Changing the duration and path for your run every day?

Exhausting.

Same thing with making breakfast.

Figure out 1 breakfast to make. Turn on autopilot. And basically, go back to sleep.

Just like the real pilots.

Lenny James Gale

Dear Lenny Gale,

Thank you for taking the entire week to criticize celebrities for endorsing products that are marketed as stuff that makes us feel good now. America is a free country. We have the freedoms to buy whatever makes us feel good now. Not in the long run. Now.

So go ahead, you righteous fuck. Juxtapose yourself with Larry the Cable Guy, Beyoncé, Michael Phelps and Erin Andrews. I know what’s coming.

You want to tell us that how great Vitamix is and how it can actually make us feel good. Ugh!

You know what, Lenny Gale? You can take your Vitamix 7500 and shove it up your ass. I don’t care that it helps me reduce heart burn, improve digestive health, stay refreshed and prepare easy, healthy and quick meals.

In America, we’re about feeling good now. Not after a couple weeks of making juices. Or smoothies. Or soup. We want to feel good now. Now!

Just leave America alone.

Disdainfully yours,

America

Michael Fred Phelps II

Dear Michael Phelps,

Thank you for recommending Subway sandwiches. I’ve always wanted to be a swimmer. Just like you. Before eating Subway sandwiches, I’d try to swim but would just sink like a rock. Now, after eating Subway sandwiches like you, I float with ease.

Thanks again,

The Men of Amurica

P.S. Any recommendation for ridding all this belly fat I recently took on?

Uncle Leo's Blog

by Lenny Gale