A Tale of Two Sandwich Men

The above video has gone a bit viral, for good reason -- if we truly made our food from scratch, individually, without the help of an industry to do the labor for us or an economic system to share the costs, a damn chicken sandwich would cost $1,500. Let's not even consider the man-hours you'd have  to put in. There has been another sandwich-related story pinging around the media, too...

Basically, a man gets famous for losing a butt-load of weight on a diet consisting of sandwiches, and is elevated to the status of folk hero by...the manufacturer of said sandwiches. Beyond the "Sammiches. Amirite?!" ironic detachment that has so gripped the kids of today, when you step back, these two stories are more connected than it initially appears.

Subway's once-spokesperson, Jared Fogel, is an admitted pedophile. His good luck at achieving fame and wealth with a seemingly simple and universal skill set allowed his sexual predilection to metastasize in the shadows. There is no clear reason given why Jared got so fat to begin with, but it's implied that it was his diet, and by changing to what can only seriously be considered disordered eating,  he did lose weight. Seriously, if you eat mostly Subway sandwiches to lose weight, that's not really any one's idea of a balanced life, even if in effect your consuming fewer calories and eating more vegetables.

Undoubtedly, what lead Jared to his weight problems, then his disordered eating, was the same things that lead most people to gain weight -- a food supply designed to reap maximum profit from the public regardless of the health consequences, and/or an individual's internal lives. Self-loathing and emotional damage can lead a person to punishing themselves with food or trying to numb themselves out by escaping into food designed to trip as many pleasure centers in the brain as possible.

Fogel fronted a huge fast food corporation whose sole purpose is to make money by getting sandwiches in your face as fast as possible. So to have an entertainment program flip this on it's head and make the most expensive sandwich as slowly as possible is startling in it's simplicity. When I taught culinary to high school students, we made everything "from scratch."  When it came to make a cake, the kids assumed we'd be using a Betty Crocker mix. We used flour, sugar, eggs, milk, baking powder, etc, and in truth the cake did not take much longer to make than from a mix. But even if it had a few extra steps that we potentially could have done, say grind wheat berries into flour and cocoa nibs into cocoa powder, keep chicken or cows for access to dairy, etc, the act of making this cake would have been overwhelming for the scope of a 3 hour class.

Subway is fast food, it offers convenience. Like air, medical care and human contact, food is necessary for human life. Convenience is not. When convenience is celebrated above all else, elevated as a simple solution to quite complex intractable problems like obesity, people like Jared Fogel who have not earned their celebrity and fortune rise in our society. Supposedly, we live in a meritocracy where people become rich and famous because of their merit, and it so titilates when seemingly merit-free people like X Kardashian achieve notoriety because it makes the stupider among us believe they can become famous, too. I guess Jared was a Kardashian for the fat crowd. We deserve better.

Will this fat Kardashian take the Subway Challenge? 

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WEEKLY AVERAGE: 2512

Another good week, professionally and personally speaking. Those two forces make it easier to clamp down on the calories a little. Still, I don't like that the average is low because of the bike riding, I need it to be low on non-ride days, too.

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MONDAY COUNT: 2650

SLEPT: 8pm-5am, 9 hrs

AM SNACK: 5:15 am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 9am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10am, Fage with almonds, honey, vanilla +/- 450 cal

LUNCH: 1:30pm, almond butter and grape jelly on whole wheat, momma salad, 590 cal

HUNGER SNACK: 4pm, spag & meatball leftovers, apple pie, +/- 400 cal

DINNER: 6pm, mahi mahi, roasted asparagus, poppa salad, 650 cal

HUNGER SNACK: 7pm, popcorn, +/- 400 cal, hunger 8/10
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BIKE CREDIT: 550 cal
TUESDAY COUNT: 2795

SLEPT: 8pm-5am, 9hrs

AM SNACK: 5:15 am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 8am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10am, Steel cut oatmeal, 450 cal

BIKE SNACK: noon, homemade granola bar, 445 cal

LUNCH: 2:30pm, chicken meatballs, steamed string beans, lentil curry, pickles, 700 cal

PM SNACK: 4:pm, momma salad, cheezits, 310 cal

DINNER: 7pm, French Bread Pizzas,  poppa salad with dressing, 1080 cal

HUNGER SNACK: 8pm, kind bar, 200 cal, 8/10
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WEDNESDAY COUNT:2500

SLEPT: 8pm-11pm, 11:30pm-2am, 2:30am - 4am, 7 hrs

AM SNACK: 4:15am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 9am, Fage yogurt with honey, vanilla, almonds, 450 cal

LUNCH: 1:45pm, grilled chicken breast, mushrooms, poppa salad, 865cal

PM SNACK: 4pm, momma salad, 100 cal

DINNER: 8pm, burrito, diet coke, +/- 925 cal
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THURSDAY COUNT: 2870

SLEPT: 11pm-3:30am, 10:30am-11:30am, 5.5 hours

AM SNACK: 3:45am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 6am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 9:30am, steel cut oatmeal, 450 cal

LUNCH: 2pm, falafel, chicken soup, momma salad, pickles, 650 cal

PM SNACK: 4pm, poppa salad cheezits, 410 cal

DINNER: 7pm, lamb chops, broccoli rabe, string beans, glass of wine, +/- 600 cal

HUNGER SNACK: 9pm, ice cream, +/- 600 cal
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BIKE CREDIT: 2415
FRIDAY COUNT: 1746

SLEPT: 11pm-5:30am, 6.5 hours

AM SNACK: 5:45am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST 1: 7am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 7:30am, Fage yogurt with almonds, honey, vanilla 450 cal

BIKE SNACK 1: 9:30am, brownie, 150mg caffeine, +/- 200 cal

BIKE SNACK 2: 11:30am, homemade granola bar, 450 cal

BIKE SNACK 3: 1:30pm,  almond butter sandwich,diet coke, 150 mg caffiene, 480cal

BIKE SNACK 3: 3:30pm, homemade granola bar, 450 cal

BIKE SNACK 4: 4:45, gatorade, 130 cal

BIKE SNACK 5: 5pm, pizza, +/- 300 cal

BIKE SNACK 6: 5:30pm, gatorade, 130 cal

DINNER: 7:30pm, Chinese brick,  +/- 1000 cal

HUNGER SNACK: 8:30pm, beef patty, 400 cal, 9/10