CNN clueless when it comes to... a lot of things

CNN.com headline: "Parents clueless when it comes to kids' growth charts". The article basically says that when doctors (et al) distribute pediatric growth charts to parents, the parents often don't understand the charts and that this "has implications in the war against childhood obesity". God forbid that parents' stupidity should get in the way of the war effort!

The thing is, though, that many parents (at least the ones I know) are perfectly aware of their kids' percentiles on the growth charts. In fact, if anything (from the perspective on a non-parent who has politely sat through more conversations on the subject than I would prefer) I would say that parents probably dwell on the percentiles a little too much. In several cases, it seemed that doctors deliberately caused the parents to worry about their very young children by going on and on about the percentiles (not just on the height/weight spectrum, but also in terms of the timing of certain childhood milestones). It is true that most of the parents I know do not have low income or low education levels, and therefore according to the article they are more likely than others to be able to understand the charts. But I'm not convinced that being able to understand the charts is really such a wonderful thing if it causes people unnecessary worry about their children. Maybe in this instance, ignorance is bliss.

Just have a look at this example of a pediatric growth chart. Notice that height and weight are on separate charts -- even as crude a measure of the height-weight relationship as BMI is not represented. Now suppose little Johnny is 2 years old and he's in the 70th percentile for weight on the chart. What is a parent to "understand" about that? *Some* child has to be at the 70th percentile -- 'cause weight, like height, exhibits a normal distribution -- so what if it's *your* child? Well, if he's also at the 70th percentile for height then maybe the doctor would let it go. But what if he's at the 50th percentile for height? Is he then "overweight"? And should you therefore put your 2 year old on a diet to slim him down?

The weirdest part of this article to me is the part where this pediatrician suggests that pediatricians talk to parents about height and weight in terms of clothing size because "It is real to them if they are having to buy clothes frequently or if hems always need shortening to accommodate girth." OK, remember we are talking about *kids* here. Now every parent who has to buy clothes frequently is supposed to panic and flip out and think that their child is abnormal and "at risk for serious medical problems"? I can just imagine what those conversations will be like... "Well, Mrs. Jones, the reason that you have had to buy new pants for your daughter three times this year is that she has a height problem. As you can see on this chart here, Susie is in the 85th percentile for height at her age, which means that she is overheight." What, you think that's ridiculous? Because height is mostly genetic and is just a natural parameter of human variation that is virtually impossible to control? And while it's possible that extreme tallness or shortness could signal an underlying health problem, which the doctor may want to check for, it is also entirely possible that there's no problem at all and therefore there's no reason to cause the parents to panic? Well, I couldn't agree with you more. Now, why is weight not treated the same way? Hey, don't ask questions like that -- don't you know we're at war?

Fat and the health care debate

Liberals: if you think that the solution to all our nation's health care problems, as well as the key to paying for a national health care plan, resides in getting rid of fat people, you are in good company: your president agrees. However, as much as I like Obama, he's just plain wrong about this. If he thinks we can "prevent obesity", he's got another think coming. And even supposing we could do that, if Obama thinks that eliminating fat people would eliminate all of our nation's medical problems and save us a trillion dollars, well, he's got even more thinking to do.

The facts are these: (1) You can't make fat people thin in the long term. (2) Making people thin doesn't necessarily make them healthy anyway -- in fact in many cases it does just the opposite. And (3) a national health care plan is going to be expensive, and rather than pretend like we can eliminate all the costs by forcing or guilting everyone into getting thin, we need to just suck it up and pay for the plan, even if that means raising taxes.

I have noticed a lot of anti-fat rhetoric associated with the health care debate. There's John Mackey's controversial WSJ editorial, and Michael Pollan's response in the New York Times, and Obama repeating his previous claims. And then there's Ashton Kutcher's statement on Bill Maher's show (which Maher of course did not call him out on): "Frankly, I don’t want to pay for the guy who’s getting a triple-bypass because he’s eating fast food all day and deep-fried snickers bars." (I should immediately point out that this quote doesn't single out fat people, just people who eat a non-Ashton Kutcher-approved diet. But I think it's not totally out of line to imagine a fat person as the stereotypical person that he had in mind with this statement.) But I've also seen it coming increasingly from ordinary people -- in debates on Facebook, for example, and in the comments that people make on some of the articles mentioned above.

Here is what I would like to say to everyone who favors universal health care: our message has to be consistent or we are doomed. It is totally hypocritical for a pro-choice liberal to declare that "a woman's body is her own" but then turn around and try to tell others what to eat and how much to exercise and how much body fat they are allowed to have. Universal health care means covering everybody, regardless of whose "fault" it is when they get sick. That is the whole point. If you keep talking about policing the way people live their lives as a way to drive down costs, you are playing right into the Republicans' fear-mongering about how Big Government takes away our freedom. We liberals need to get our thinking straight about this, or this whole health care thing is going nowhere.

P.S. Sorry for the comment moderation; I've been getting spam comments every day on my last post and I don't know how else to block them. I'll try to approve your comments quickly.

P.P.S. I just got wind of a new blog called Fat Habitat that may be of interest. It's about fat and sustainability. There aren't many posts yet (and the last one was pro-Michael Pollan before he made his recent anti-fat remarks, so it will be interesting to see how he's treated in the next post), but this will be one to watch.

Automatically refreshing

(I got tired of the SkyMall catalog shtick.)

On recommendation from Guy Fieri (a.k.a. "Guido"), we decided to check out Taylor's Automatic Refresher. For those not familiar with Guido's oeuvre, he's the Guy from Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives (a.k.a. "Triple-D"). A cheeseball, most certainly, but we like him and his show (more on that below), and he hasn't steered us wrong yet (in addition to Taylor's, we recently went to Byways Cafe in Portland, also featured on the show, also awesome).

Anyway, so Taylor's. They have three locations -- one in St. Helena, one in Napa, and one in San Francisco. Triple-D featured the Napa location, but we hit the one in SF, which is in the Ferry Building (which we recommend in general as a cool place to spend an hour or two -- they've got a bunch of shops including Cowgirl Creamery and Scharffen Berger, plus the Slanted Door, which is a great restaurant with a great bar). Our meal (pictured above) included the ahi burger, which is basically what got us in the door, and which turned out to be really super awesome. We had actually already tried making it with some friends about a month ago based on the recipe in Guido's book (Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives) and it was really delicious -- our grill-master did an excellent job and the ginger-wasabi mayo and asian slaw, courtesy of the Admiral, really made it. The version in the restaurant was just as good; OK, better. Plus we got some super-garlicky garlic fries with it, which definitely enhanced the experience, and a nice bottle of wine. The Admiral ordered the bleu cheese burger but accidentally got the cheeseburger (as he pointed out, more differentiation among the names of the menu items couldn't hurt), which was tasty too. It certainly wasn't cheap for a meal of burgers and fries, but oh my, it was yummy.

Back to Guido. There's a lot of hate out there on the internet for some reason (try googling "Guy Fieri" with "douchebag" and you'll see what I mean). And, you know, I can see how some people might find him annoying, although I also suspect people are jealous of how awesome his job is. But anyway, not liking him is fine (even though I don't really see how anyone can dispute the fact that it's cool how his show highlights independent local hangout spots that generally have moderate to low prices and often are into making all their food from scratch using organic and/or local ingredients), and certainly making snarky comments about a public figure is not something I disapprove of. What really grinds my gears, however, is the way that so many of people's negative remarks about him make reference to his being fat -- just try googling "Guy Fieri" with "fat". I have to admit that maybe his being a chunky fellow is part of why I like him -- granted, it's probably easier and more common for a fat man to get his own TV show than a fat woman, but still, not that many fat people have TV shows. So I give him props for making it in spite of being fat (actually I don't think he's all that fat -- but he's definitely fat for TV). Am I a hypocrite if I like the guy more because he's fat but I think it's bad if people like him less because he's fat? Well, no, I don't think so. Maybe I would be if there was someone I disliked because they were thin, but I'm pretty sure I'm not that way. And furthermore, it's probably pretty uncommon for someone to have to overcome anti-thin prejudice in order to make it on TV (I don't deny that anti-thin prejudice exists, but I'm thinking it's not much of a problem in Hollywood).

The Fish & Farm Carrot Cake Cocktail.

So we met up with a buddy at Fish & Farm in San Francisco, a nifty gastropub that I highly recommend. They're doing some very cool stuff with good ingredients that are local, organic, etc. Another interesting thing about them is that the prices on the menu are "all-inclusive" -- so no taxes or tips to worry about (and sales tax in SF ain't cheap -- 9.5%!). This means that what look like moderately expensive prices are actually quite reasonable for what you get.

I started with a carrot cake cocktail (pictured above). Sound disgusting? Well, it was actually quite tasty. According to the menu, the ingredients are: roasted carrot vodka (?!?), cake spice brandy, cream, brown sugar, and brandy-plumped raisins (mine only had one, which sat cutely in the bottom of the glass waiting for me to finish the drink and eat it up). It really does taste like carrot cake, too, which is a personal favorite of mine -- more on that in a future post.

The food was awesome too. Among the three of us, we tried fish and chips, a super-tasty burger, and fried chicken. All were excellent.

I should also mention that in addition to the carrot cake cocktail, Fish & Farm offers a bacon cocktail (yes, a bacon cocktail) called the Bacon-Drop. Of course the Admiral couldn't resist ordering it. I tried it, flexitarian that I am, and actually I rather liked it. He kinda hated it, himself. De gustibus non est disputandum, I suppose.

Any SF cocktail fans out there recognize the glassware?

The Cheeseboard Pizza.

Cheeseboard Pizza is this awesome pizza place in Berkeley that's part of the Cheeseboard Collective, a co-op that has a truly amazing selection of cheeses. They are really nice in there and will let you taste any number of cheeses and give you recommendations until you find the cheese you want. Anyway, the pizza place is truly outstanding and one of my favorite things in the bay area. Basically every day they make one kind of pizza, always vegetarian, no sauce, a good amount of garlic and oil, and usually with creative ingredients and some kind of fancy cheese. The day we went they had the above pictured pizza on offer (fyi, in case it just looks like a pile of pizza, the deal is that they give you a free half slice with every half pie, so we got two free half slices with our whole pie, which is what you see sitting on top). It had mozzarella, garlic, some kind of yummy mushrooms, and was topped with spinach and parmesan cheese and a little lemon. The spinach seemed like it would be a little weird but had a nice effect. This is my absolute favorite pizza anywhere.

The Gordo Burrito.

There are few better things in life than a burrito from Gordo. I can't believe we were in the Bay Area for 3 days before we actually got around to having one.

Check out the photo. (FYI, I had to nibble off the top of the burrito very carefully to get that cross-section -- so don't say I never did anything for you!) Do you see the melted cheese? That, my friends, is the key to an excellent burrito. In every other city where I've had a burrito, you get little cold pieces of shredded cheese that don't really melt, and therefore they don't get fully integrated into your burrito experience. But at Gordo, they have this steam thingy. They take the tortilla and put a slice or two of cheese on it, and then they lay it onto this round thing and pull down another round thing on top of it, and some steam comes out, and then when they pull out the tortilla, the cheese is all melted and the tortilla itself is floppy and kind of sticky. Then they put in the rest of the ingredients -- the way I order my Super Bean and Cheese, I get pinto beans, rice, fresh salsa, guacamole, and sour cream (incidentally, the guac's not bad, especially for how cheap it is -- though of course it's no Gloriously Garlicky Guacamole) and roll it up. You can also get meat and/or hot sauce, and you can get other kinds of beans. Regardless of how you order it, your cheese mingles beautifully with the other contents of the burrito, and since the tortilla gets kind of sticky, that means that it wraps up well into a tight (but fat!) burrito. I can usually eat mine very neatly without dropping anything out of it. There's no drippage, nothing wet coming out of the burrito at all. And did I mention how cheap this place is? We're talking super cheap.

Another thing to point out about Gordo is how awesome the name is (it means "fat", for those who don't know, and I believe it can also be used as a noun to mean "fat person" or "fat thing", though I'm no scholar of Spanish). So that makes it a good way to kick off my Bay Area food blogging. More soon!

We'll be sure to wear flowers in our hair

So we're getting ready to head to the Bay Area for about a month, and I'm very excited. It's for an academic thing, which I am looking forward to, but I have to confess that I am a little more excited about seeing our friends and (more relevant to the blog) eating wonderful food. I don't want to turn this into a food blog, but I've decided I'm going to take pictures of our culinary adventures for the month and share the highlights with you all. I envision a mixture of our old favorites (burritos from Gordo, cannoli from Cafe Trieste) and stuff from places we haven't tried yet, especially in San Francisco proper (since I never felt I explored the city sufficiently when we lived in the area).

Don't you worry, though: after the trip is over, soon enough I'm sure I'll get back to complaining about the state of the world and how stupid and mean people are.

Sometimes you're pleasantly surprised

I saw this link on CNN today about Sanjay Gupta's new "Four Months to Fitness" program and I was like, oh no, what new anti-fat crap is he going to have for us today? Because let's face it, the guy has a history of saying some pretty fucked-up shit about fat (that last one really gets me -- there's a part where Gupta says "The obesity epidemic radically changed the way new Natalie's Bridal Shop does business. Five to 10 years ago, owner Jeannie Posner sold mostly size 6 and 8. Now it's more like 8 to 14" -- er, yeah, because people who wear sizes 8-14 are totally obese...?).

I started reading and the first specific detail he mentioned about the plan was a website for tracking what you eat, and I figured this was more of Gupta's same old anti-obesity bullshit. But then I kept reading and it got to be mostly about exercise, and my fat ass almost fell out of my chair when I got to this sentence: "While smaller waists and less weight are things that will inevitably occur as you start incorporating these tips into your life, the real goal is a longer, more functional and exceptional life – free of disease and dysfunction." Wow. I mean, I don't agree that weight loss is "inevitabl[e]" with exercise and/or eating a healthy diet (as opposed to a weight loss diet), but I can totally get behind the whole rest of what he's saying there. Maybe this program is actually kind of cool. It almost makes me want to join, except not quite, because Sanjay Gupta is still an asshole. Maybe just less of an asshole than I thought before.