For three of my four years of college, I lived off of Burger King. That’s no exaggeration. I must have had it at least once a day, with few exceptions, for every day I was on campus. By the time I left college I gained about 80 pounds; Hardly a surprise. What actually did surprise me is how my appetite for Burger King had been completely burnt out. In the eight years since college I’ve eaten at Burger King only twice. This commercial persuaded me to go on my most recent visit.

I was excited. I love spicy hamburgers and was glad to see Burger King get in the game. Yet, when I finally bit into that Whopper I was let down. Tremendously let down! The first bite had no kick, but I tried to reassure myself that it was only the first bite and maybe the heat just needed to build. Second bite, nothing. Third bite, nothing. I ate that entire Whopper and felt nothing! No heat, no kick, no spice, no nothing! There was no anger in that Whopper and it will be years before I make my third trip to Burger King.

And speaking of individualism… It turns out you can’t blame McDonald’s for fat people. Researchers from Northwestern University and UC Berkeley have disproven the common idea that fast food restaurants are to blame for America’s fattening.

The nanny-state idea that the ubiquitous growth in fast food locations is causing us simple proles to overeat is wrong. It turns out those restaurants exist to meet our desire to eat more. So all those measures to ban new fast food restaurants, or zone them into extinction is pointless.

Analysis of food intake micro data suggests that although consumers eat larger meals at restaurants than at home (even after accounting for selection), they offset these calories at other times of day. We conclude that public health policies targeting restaurants are unlikely to reduce obesity but could negatively affect consumer welfare.

So please nanny-staters, stop bringing up Super Size Me and Fast Food Nation. Those “evil” fast food corporations aren’t making me fat. It’s my own fault.

I have to wonder if PETA intentionally does things to make themselves sound insane and get attention. If so, PETA’s latest ploy has done a wonderful job. They have written a letter asking Ben & Jerry’s to switch from cow milk to human breast milk in their ice cream.

Do I really have to explain why I find this ridiculous? I’d like to think most people are sensible enough to understand why this proposal is lunacy. Maybe I’m not getting it. Perhaps this is tongue-in-cheek like Swift’s A Modest Proposal?

I also think I deserve applause for not succumbing to the obvious and posting a picture of some fantastically large knockers. This story is a great excuse for that, but I’m taking the high road.

I have nothing but sympathy for all service workers right now. I saw the most ridiculous thing at Jack in the Box an hour ago.

I don’t normally work on Friday, but today I had to fill in for someone on sick leave. I came into work early so I would have time to stop at the Jack in the Box across the street for lunch. It was crowded but otherwise uneventful. I was standing near the counter waiting for my food when I listed in on this disheveled, scruffy looking guy placing his order.

Now if you visit Jack in the Box with any sort of regularity, you are aware they sell that sirloin burger where you can specify the type of cheese and onions you want on it. This guy took it a step beyond. It wasn’t enough to choose between cheddar, American or Swiss. He wanted one slice of American on top, and one slice of cheddar on the bottom. The guy behind the counter froze for a sec and slowly looked up at him. The order taker was a total professional though. Trying to accommodate this ridiculous request, he told the customer he would have to shout that instruction to the cook. Perhaps this only emboldened the customer, or maybe he intended to ask this all along, but then he decided his burger must only have iceburg lettuce. As he said, “I don’t want the romaine lettuce. I want iceburg lettuce. That pale kind.” The counter guy just went with it. I, for one, had no idea Jack in the Box even uses two types of lettuce, and I eat there about once a week.

I don’t understand what possessed that customer to be so fussy. Is he really going to taste the difference between one slice of cheddar and one slice of American? The lettuce substitution really knocked me for a loop too. Food service workers, I know you have to put up with weirdos like that everyday. I doth my hat to all of you.

Burger King’s UK branch is offering a luxury burger for $200. For that money you’ll get Waygu beef from Japan, white truffles, onions fried in Cristal, with a pinch of pink Himalayan rock salt. I don’t even know what is special about salt from the Himalayans or how pink it is. What’s odd is that the bun isn’t worth mentioning. If I have to plunk down one hundred British pounds, I don’t want the same bun that the Whoppers come on.

I find this really strange for Burger King. They’re going to have to keep these high quality ingredients in stock at how many BKs in the UK? How can this possibly be profitable? How many people will pay that kind of money for a burger in a fast food joint?

This news alone wouldn’t be worth mentioning though. It’s a silly fast food gimmick that will disappear in a month. I bring this up because of the self righteous criticism Burger King is receiving from some food crisis campaigners. These professional busybodies are outraged (aren’t they always?) that BK would sell something so decadent. Food prices have skyrocketed. Riots have broken out around the world because people can’t afford staple foods. And according to these campaigners, this is supposed to shame Burger King.

Spare me this moralistic lecture! When haven’t there been millions of people going to bed hungry? So none of us in the first world should enjoy a meal until all the third worlders have abundant food? This $200 burger isn’t going to make anyone starve. Burger King isn’t hijacking food shipments to Africa to offer this burger. It’s going to be extremely low volume too so it won’t have any effect on commodity prices. They’re just taking a cheap shot at a big corporation.

The Freakonomics blog tackled the emotional issues raised by locovores. I’ve never heard the word until last week, but I’ve been familiar for years with the concept these people follow. These are people who refuse to eat anything that wasn’t produced locally. “Locally” can vary according to the whim of the locovore. It may include everything within a 100 miles or maybe just 50, or may be as large as only within your state. The point of all this is to lessen the amount of greenhouse gasses produced in industrial agriculture. If food has to travel less to get to you, less fuel was burned.

I can’t completely agree with that Freakonomics post because it mostly skirted the issue. It concentrated on the question of whether it was helpful or not for everyone to produce their own food. That’s not really what locovores are about. However Freakonomics did cite a very interesting statistic. Transportation only accounts for 15% of the greenhouse gas emissions of a unit of food. Eleven percent is spent on transport from the farm to the store, and 4% is spent getting it from the store to your house. So locovores are only fighting a battle against 11% of emissions. Does that really seem worth the effort? It doesn’t to me if it means losing any variety in my diet. Not that I’m completely against this idea. I just don’t think it’s useful in terms of reducing emissions.

However if more people want to buy locally or do some gardening themselves, I’m all for it as long as you’re doing for the right reasons. You’re not going to change the world by gardening, but you may just have some fun and get some exercise. I actually would like to do some myself. I don’t really care for bothering with commonly available vegetables or fruits. Ever since I found that there are different varieties of corn, I’ve been a little obsessed with growing these obscure varieties. Why bother growing the same orange carrots or yellow corn you can buy at the store for a few cents a pound? If you’re going to put the effort in, then grow something special.

With that in mind I cannot get these Moon & Stars watermelons out of my head! Look at the rind – it’s yellow and purple! Who knew this existed?!?! I sure didn’t. For all I knew, watermelons were green on the outside and red inside. Sometimes you could find those freak yellow ones but that’s it. I would love to be able to bring these home. I have been thinking since last weekend about buying some seeds and attempting to grow them. But I don’t have a lot of space on the patio and I really don’t know if Northern California’s climate is any good for growing watermelons. Still though, I can’t stop thinking about it.

Not only would I grow the Moon & Stars watermelon, but on the other side of my patio I’d plant Dragon Carrots! They have this metallic red sheen to them that seems so alien. The Seed Savers Exchange says they have a slightly spicy flavor too.

This is all just so exciting to me. Seed Savers has red potatoes and purple potatoes and apple green eggplants and the True Lemon Cucumber. Where was this years ago when I had a huge backyard in Brooklyn! Seriously I wish I had the Seed Savers catalog when I was a kid. I would have spent a lot more time gardening with my dad. That would have been some nice quality time. Of course now when I want to garden, I’m deprived of soil.

But back to the locovores. You guys obviously care about the environment otherwise you wouldn’t make a fuss over buying local. If you’re going to start a garden too, grow some unique fruits and vegetables. Doing so will preserve biodiversity. Agribusiness will keep the standard vegetables alive. Don’t duplicate their efforts. Keep these varieties alive and make your dinner plate a little more interesting.

Food price inflation pinching your pocket? Infuriated that carbon dioxide emissions aren’t going down? Well there’s something that you can do to help both those issues – eat bugs! Adding them to your diet can save you money and spare agricultural resources. Take that nauseated look off your face and listen!

As it turns out many species of bugs can far exceed the nutritional value of beef, chicken or pork. Eating three crickets would provide you with a full day’s worth of iron for instance. Ounce for ounce, insects are more nutrient packed because they’re drier than meat. The water inside meat cells take up space that is used to store nutrients in insect bodies. Insects are also a fantastic source of proteins “for what is lacking in largely vegetarian diets,” says Dr. Sandra Bukkens a nutrition consultant in Barcelona. Vegetarians, would you really feel all that bad about munching on some grasshoppers or crickets?

Hey and if you want to be a trendsetter, this is a great way to get ahead of our booming green movement. Nothing is more green than adding bugs to your diet. Edible bugs are all vegetarians, and as such, don’t require a great deal of resources to raise. Bonus, these bugs can eat a much more varied vegetarian diet than normal meat animals like cow and pigs. You can feed them organic junk like cacti, bamboo shoots or scrub brush. Double bonus, bugs are even more efficient at turning the food you feed them into their edible body tissues.

Why would you resist eating bugs after reading that!?

Because they’re gross. It’s as simple as that. I don’t care if they’re healthier or if they will save the world. There’s just no way I can chew on a bug. I’d like to think I would be adventurous enough to try some cooked bugs if I ever ventured into the Third World but I am just not sure I could commit to that. Look at that bowl of fried crickets. That doesn’t make you gag? I’m sure gagging now. I’m staring at it and I keep expecting it to become a swarming mass of these scary creatures. The thought of putting one of those bulbous, crunchy bodies into my mouth frightens me.

And don’t lecture me about the link between insects and crustaceans. I don’t eat crab or lobster. Once I found out how closely related lobsters and cockroaches are, my interest in tasting lobster disappeared. I specifically don’t eat those foods because they’re the bugs of the sea. I’ll have to confess to eating fried shrimp though. It took me years to get over my aversion to them but I did eventually. I’ll only eat the fried ones though because, covered in batter, they don’t resemble shrimp. I can pretend they’re something else. Although I do have to chew them fairly quickly. If I eat them slowly, their texture will bother me. Try slowly chewing on a shrimp. That flesh has a snap-back that is far unlike beef, chicken or pork.

Anyway, these scientists that are promoting insect eating are fighting a losing battle. As today’s developing societies grow their economies, people will change their diets to load up on “richer” food. The bugs will drop away in favor of more muscle meats and organ meats. Later on the organ meats will be dismissed. At first the bugs will be stigmatized as food for poor people. A generation or two later will then see eating bugs as filthy.

There’s no way this bug diet advocacy will take off in Europe or the US. Westerners have no history of eating bugs. Even in ancient times, poor people subsisted off of grains and vegetables. Bugs were never part of the meal. That’s a rather interesting divergence. Why were insects shunned in Europe, but eaten everywhere else? Some grad student could probably write an entertaining thesis on that.

Food has gotten expensive right? It’s not just me noticing this? I’m sorry if that’s such an obvious question considering all the TV, newspaper and magazine coverage it has gotten. Doubt has crept into my mind today though.

I was reading an article about some clerical screw up Congress had regarding the farm bill that was vetoed by Pres. Bush. I greatly dislike this farm bill, but that’s not what has addled my brain. One part of a line in that article, not even a full sentence, confused me.

…and additional $30 billion would go to farmers to idle their land…

Wha? Why? Food price inflation is only second in prominence to gas price rises. Rising food price have caused riots in several cities. Yet Congress still wants to give billions away to farmers to grow nothing. Shouldn’t we be trying to grow everything flat out? This isn’t the time to let land lie fallow. You only do that when food prices crash because you’re trying to prop them up for next harvest. We’re in exactly the opposite situation now. Farmers are raking in huge profits. They don’t need to hold back production. Everything they grow will sell and at a handsome profit.

Shamelessly populist Senators want to pass a windfall profits tax on oil companies to help out “the people”. As if Congress getting more money to waste will do me one bit of good. Why aren’t they hauling in corn-growing Iowa hicks to the Senate and threatening them with a windfall profits tax too? It would be just as fair.

Glory Hallelujah! For I have seen the Promised Land and it comes on a thick, crusty loaf of bread. I stumbled across this sandwich online during a very slow workday. I should tell you what it is because I doubt you could get it right from just looking at it. I sure wouldn’t have. What you’re seeing is General Tso’s Cheesesteak. Yes, one man took it upon himself to answer the question, “What would General Tso’s chicken taste like if you put it on a cheesesteak?” His answer, “One of the tastiest sandwiches I’ve ever had.” I encourage you to click through that link and take a look at all his pictures of the creation process.

Meditating over this has led me to conclude I haven’t really lived. Sure I’ve existed for almost thirty years, but I have not been living. I can’t say I have ever eaten anything that comes close to the awesomeness of General Tso’s Cheesesteak. For that I am profoundly sad.

I’m also quite hungry. I keep staring at that picture and it’s making me feel voracious. I just ate a bowl of ice cream a half hour ago so I should be satisfied, but right now all I can think of is sinking my teeth into a hunk of that juicy chicken.

There is one thing that bothers me. He left the day-glo yellow cheese off the cheesesteak for this. Instead of that, he scraped out the cheese from some crab rangoons and spread that on the sandwich. That kinda makes me want to gag. That stuff is cream cheese and belongs nowhere near steak or chicken. Frankly, I’d rather try this sandwich with the ordinary bright yellow Cheez Wiz. Actually I’d like to pour some hoisin sauce on too. That would be tasty!

Whenever I run out of cold cuts at home and I can’t bring a sandwich to work, I drop by the Jack in the Box that’s just a block away. On my last trip I gave the new Sirloin Steak Melt a try. I had high hopes. I’ve eaten those Sirloin burgers already and I hold them in high regard.

As an idea the Sirloin Steak Melt hits a lot of the right buttons. Jack’s ad campaign has already placed “sirloin” as a sort of premium cut of meat, somehow set above standard burger fare. “Steak” didn’t need an ad to get people thinking it’s good. Saying that you’re eating steak in your meal already gives it a premium feel. Finally that “melt”, at least in my mind, harkens back to the diners of the 1950s. That’s the golden age of this fatty food and by recalling that period people will think this burger is somehow authentic to that period.

So as I said I had high hopes when I bought this. The reality was downright shocking. I understand a melt, by definition, is swimming in melted cheese, but there wasn’t enough steak in my melt to bind it all together. The meat-to-cheese proportion was off. When I picked it up, it was a soupy concoction that was impossible to keep stable in my hands. To eat it I had to hunch over my desk, take a quick bite and immediately place the melt down on the wrapper so the cheese wouldn’t leak out. An even bigger flaw is the choice of bread. Those thin slices cannot handle the melted cheese and steak grease. Even after I was so careful, the melt still fell apart. I had to scrape the remains off my wrapper to eat.

But the messiness isn’t even the worst part of it. The Sirloin Steak Melt just didn’t taste all that good. There was just too much grease. This would be vastly improved if the cooks let the meat drip on a rack for 30 seconds after taking it off the griddle. Plus the steak pieces were tough and rubbery. We’ve all had bad steak at some point. No one wants to put up with that. Anything else at Jack in the Box is better. I’ve had this once and will not again.