ok to eat junk food?

Tim McNamara writes:

"Per Elmsäter" writes:

The people in my club that do the Randonneur thing ( Ultra long
distances) eat almost nothing but junkfood on their rides.

I found in the brevet series and at PBP this year that junk food did
not work well at all, in fact it harmed my performance. Some of
this may be acclimation- as my wife worked for 14 years at a natural
foods co-op and now works in promoting sustainable agriculture, my
diet tends to consist of whole grain/vegetable based/organic/yadda
yadda stuff.

Apart from generally tasting better and being more satisfying to
eat, I find that junk food doesn't sit well in my stomach.

All right, I don't like responding to my own posts but I have to
correct this statement as it was terribly written. Junk food doesn't
taste as good to me nor is it as satisfying to eat as, say, a baked
sweet potato. The latter is a bit difficult to manage on a bike,
though, I must admit. Real food tastes better, IMHO. Junk food
tastes like what it is.

"Per Elmsäter" writes:

I forgot to mention. Maybe we define junkfood differently on this
side of the atlantic.

From my experiences in France, I'd have to suspect that this is
true. The general quality of food seemed much higher there than in
the US, in restaurants and in markets.

On Sat, 13 Dec 2003 15:16:28 -0600, Tim McNamara
wrote:
All right, I don't like responding to my own posts but I have to
correct this statement as it was terribly written. Junk food doesn't
taste as good to me nor is it as satisfying to eat as, say, a baked
sweet potato. The latter is a bit difficult to manage on a bike,
though, I must admit. Real food tastes better, IMHO. Junk food
tastes like what it is.

I don't like sweet potatoes, but is there much of anything better
than a baked potato (of your preferred variety)? That's damn near
one of the most satisfying and yummy foods in existence.

Does frozen pizza qualify as junk food? Cheese ravioli and Tony's
frozen pizza compete with baked potatoes for the number 1 spot on my
list. Beef comes in second (with two exceptions for specific
preparations of beef that also compete for 1st, one of which
involves cheese and whole wheat).

I'm getting really hungry.
--
Rick Onanian

Rick Onanian writes:

On Sat, 13 Dec 2003 12:33:11 -0600, Tim McNamara
wrote:
"Q." LostVideos-AT-hotmail.com writes:

A human beings natural lifespan is about 40 years.

And on what do you base this astonishing revelation?

His key word was "natural". That is, wild (not domesticated) homo
sapiens in their natural (not modern) environment.

There are non-domesticated H. sapiens? Think about that for a
moment.

In some places, it's even less than 40. Take a look at this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Zambia

snip

It's going down! They're living SHORTER there. Pretty soon, nobody
there will survive childhood.

Thanks to the problems Africa is facing with drought, AIDS, etc.
That's not a "natural" lifespan.

This "40 year natural lifespan" bunkum is just that, bunkum. It's a
confusion between life *expectancy* and life *span". The natural
lifespan, which is properly considered the *maximum* lifespan in the
absence of disease or accident, is 120 years and has been for hundreds
if not thousands of years. At least, that's what is told to medical
students. Many people have lived to be 120, very few have lived
beyond.

Life expectancy is a very different issue, and in the developed world-
e.g., Europe and North America- has continued to rise over the past
115 years or so. In the rest of the world lack of clean drinking
water, effective (un)sanitary waste management and inadequate diet
account for the majority of deaths. ISTR the WHO determining that the
single largest proximate cause of death in the world is diarrhea.

Rick Onanian writes:

On Sat, 13 Dec 2003 12:18:08 -0800, Dave Carroll
wrote:

And I notice that a number of people on this thread have written
something like "junk food tastes good, but it's not the right thing
to eat." Junk food only tastes good if you train yourself to eat it
everyday, anyway.

AFAIK, our bodies naturally like junk food, and must be _trained_ to
like _healthy_ food, as a result of millions of years of evolution
in which such things as high fat food were necessary to survival.

Necessary and typically being available only occasionally, unlike
today's food-toxic environment. Interestingly enough, it tends also
to be these foods which are the cheapest because they receive the
lion's share of governmental subsidies throughout the production
chain.

The people who ate calorie-dense foods survived and reproduced,
passing on the dense-is-yummy gene...

Yup, "junk food" plays upon this. Since we (as a culture) eat it
every day for years, we die prematurely of the consequences of
obesity and other "diseases of prosperity."

Paul Kopit wrote in message . ..


Another school has the average rider using 350 calorie/hr. At 26
miles, that might be a total of 500 calories. A bagel and soda would
be enough.

Q1. What is a bagel?

Q2. How many pints of beer per hout does this equate to (just so that
I know how frequemtly to time mu pib stops)?

Andrew Webster

Rick Onanian writes:

On Sat, 13 Dec 2003 15:16:28 -0600, Tim McNamara
wrote:

All right, I don't like responding to my own posts but I have to
correct this statement as it was terribly written. Junk food
doesn't taste as good to me nor is it as satisfying to eat as, say,
a baked sweet potato. The latter is a bit difficult to manage on a
bike, though, I must admit. Real food tastes better, IMHO. Junk
food tastes like what it is.

I don't like sweet potatoes, but is there much of anything better
than a baked potato (of your preferred variety)? That's damn near
one of the most satisfying and yummy foods in existence.

I actually prefer sweet potatoes, but you're right- a baked potato is
a wonderful thing.

Does frozen pizza qualify as junk food? Cheese ravioli and Tony's
frozen pizza compete with baked potatoes for the number 1 spot on my
list. Beef comes in second (with two exceptions for specific
preparations of beef that also compete for 1st, one of which
involves cheese and whole wheat).

I suppose frozen pizza probably is junk food. A really well made
Neapolitan style pizza is a different animal altogether.

"Rick Onanian" wrote in message
...
what about fat?

I guess it depends when you eat it. For a 26 mile ride, you
probably won't need to eat during the ride; fat is fine. As far as
your weight is concerned, X amount of calories is X amount of
calories regardless of it's source. If you're eating mid-ride to
avoid bonking (running out of fuel), fat will _cause_ you to bonk
even worse (just ask me on many of my failed century attempts).

For the sort of moderate speed riding you're doing at long distances, you're
typically burning 70/80% fat. At a slow enough pace (~12 mph) you can go
indefinitely just on stored fat reserves. I can confirm this, having completed
a double without eating.

Success at centuries & beyond comes mostly from putting in the training miles
and pacing yourself.

Paul Kopit wrote in message news:c1rmtvkspbgs17bkpgc5
Another school has the average rider using 350 calorie/hr.

Andrew Webster wrote:
: Q2. How many pints of beer per hout does this equate to (just so that
: I know how frequemtly to time mu pib stops)?

that is almost exactly two pints of guinness per hour.
--
david reuteler

On 14 Dec 2003 00:15:57 GMT, David Reuteler may
have said:

Paul Kopit wrote in message news:c1rmtvkspbgs17bkpgc5
Another school has the average rider using 350 calorie/hr.

Andrew Webster wrote:
: Q2. How many pints of beer per hout does this equate to (just so that
: I know how frequemtly to time mu pib stops)?

that is almost exactly two pints of guinness per hour.

Or four American beers[1] of most varieties.



[1] yes, I know, Budweiser in, Budweiser out...

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