Food: Portion Distortion and how America Dies on Dunkin Donuts

I read a disturbing leaflet at my gym concerning the fastfood industry practice of manipulating portions. Truth is, I see these games at the supermarket with weights (if the per roll price is too steep they change to per 100 on paper, per LB might change to per 100 gr)… In this case I went to the McDonald’s website to get some digits on a typical value meal…

Quarter Pounder With Fries: The QP is 4 oz by itself – The website reports that a serving is 6 oz with all the goop: 410 calories, the fries are another 380 calories, 210 calories for a regular Coke…all this Medium and taken from their website which contains a very good section on putting together your meals (regardless of quality) – they are disclosing what you are stuffing. It is up to you to deal with it, I am still not convinced they are presenting totals as opposed to portion totals (a smaller amount equal to 1/4th of what you are actuall eating). Okay, so 1000 calories without a refill on the Coke… Keep that number in mind and lets go back to breakfast with Dunkin Donuts: Using their website I found…

Supreme Omelet on a Croissant: 530 calories with a whopping 300 from fat! (blame the Croissant on this one…)

Say you are not as fond of eggs as I am – 380 calories on a Sesame Bagel with a sensible 70 cal from fat (15-25% of your total), slap on some cream cheese and you end at 570 calories!!!!

You need to wash it down with something, how about Coffee? Only 15 cals if you can do D&D coffee with out sugar, but if you are like most of us, some cream and sugar is in order: 120 cals!!! that is for a tiny 10 oz cup, so say 150 for the 12 ouncer, you are now at 720 cal for breakfast and hit 1720 by 1 o clock…

A 25 year old Man, 5′8 and 180 lb would only need 2500 cal daily to sustain a healthy diet (source: healthychoice.com), a Woman, 2100 cal… So going home and having some dinner (assuming you work all day)…  say a nice salmon fillet with rice would only set you back at around 300 cals and guess what, you  ended at the mark. The problem is that people seldom adhere to 3 meals through out the day… I am no expert, but if you hit the coffee twice at the office, you added 300 cal to the total. Get another Coke instead of water things add up more. A quick energy bar can be 200 cals… So, do we blame the supplier? Do we blame individuals for not taking responsibility and learning more about what to eat instead of following the cars to the take out window?

I am going to expand on this section – I need to find out totals on typical Latin American breakfasts… I suspect the total will be less than the D&D options…

Therapist

Disturbing that the word can be read as The Rapist. Any more out there?

Are You a Reaper?

My wife works in a large company… and as you well know many of these companies have been forced to scale down on the amount of staff in their offices. While many people will focus on logos when they hear of a lay-off… have you ever given thought that there are people that are given the unenviable task of delivering the bad news to the employees at a given unit. So upon hearing that “the Reaper” had visited my wife
s office I could not help but shudder thinking what a crappy task that is. I have laid off people, yet it was through the course of normal business. People saw me everyday and having meetings with me was not an uncommon thing. But when a specific person that never interacts with you shows up and leads five people out of the office with a couple of security guards…. that gets you noticed – thus the moniker, that while not too creative, designates the way she will now be perceived from here on. Her arrival this week created tension, tears and of course thoughts of her last visit. This time she took care of one person… not without causing a great amount of emotional devastation to those remaining.

In a way, it is like being in a cage…awaiting to be the next chicken cast into a boiling pot. A bad feeling for an employee – yet have you given thought that perhaps the Reaper has her own feelings, did not go to college just to fire and lay people off. Human Resources is about so much more, so it is sad that in these days some HR staffers are viewed as messengers of doom and death.

Part of this is the cowardice of corporate executives to take this task upon themselves – i.e. sit down with employees and give them the news personally.

When I was laid off two years ago, my boss sat down with me in a one on one meeting. It was shocking, yet I got it, it was not easy for him – and it has never been easy for me to lay off people, but I would not delegate the “dirty deed” to HR just out of respect to those I have lead.

If you are a Reaper, remember the feelings of the people that have formed a bond with you. Respect their reactions and offer your support. None of this should violate mandates to avoid lawsuits, etc. It should affirm your place in this World as a Human, not a messenger of death.

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Y porque esto siquiera califico como noticia? Es triste que la gente escuche lo que este bribon tenga por decir. Es un delincuente que habla como si estuviera sentado en una mesa jugando domino, medio borracho.