The Daily Procrastinator

You know what we’re talking about: you can’t resist them, yet part of you cringes at the badness of it all. I want your Top 5, kids.

Mine include:

• Pepperoni pizza. Unlike my general high standards for pizza, I will eat any crappy pizza if it’s topped with pepperoni. It makes no sense at all.
• Rice Krispy treats. I suppose they’re probably not so bad in moderation, but I’ve never eaten them in moderation.
• Milkshakes, but only if they’re the massive black-and-white shakes from Nifty Fifty’s in Philly.
• Tastykakes. Yes, I’m from Philly, what do you expect?
• Funnel cakes. My favorite part of any fair or festival is the funnel cake cart. Dough cooked in oil and covered with powdered sugar? Pure genius for the carb obsessed.

Flashcap here. I’ve got plenty of guilty pleasure foods, but my top five are:

• McDonald’s Double Quarter Pounder w/cheese. Yeah, yeah, Super Size Me and all that, but I can’t help it. The greasy burger beckons me every time I pull into the drive-thru. I swear I hear my arteries cursing me when I’m swallowing it down. Luckily I run long distances.
• Cheetos. Bags of the crunchy orange temptations don’t stay in the house long at all.
• Chili dogs. Even more than those Royales w/cheese, I’ll eat the hell out of chili dogs. Sadly, there’s no Wienerschnitzel close to where I live or work, so Sonic chili dogs are the quickest ones available, but not quite the same thing.
• Pepperoni rolls. We have a pizza place here in Texas called DoubleDave’s where they roll pepperoni and cheese up in twists of dough and bake them. Add either ranch or marinara dipping sauce and I’m bound to eat 10 of them in one sitting. Beware of any imitations.
• Peanut M&Ms. I’m like a vacuum when it comes to those things. I can’t stop eating them when they’re in front of me. Hey, the peanuts are lowering my cholesterol, right?

So…you want to know about BigRedPoet’s top 5 guilty pleasure foods, huh? I’m going to need a minute to whittle down my preliminary list of 462…

• Ultimate Bacon Cheeseburger from Jack In The Box. There’s no two ways about it; this is the best (worst?) hamburger available in the fast food world. Sure, you can FEEL yourself getting fatter while you eat it, but sometimes a ration of fat is worth a ration of awesome.
• Crunchwrap Supreme from Taco Bell. Oh my God. Who invented this? I want to give him/her a big sloppy kiss. This thing consists of a huge tortilla, beans, taco meat, a crispy tostada chip, lettuce, tomato, shredded cheese, melted nacho cheese, and sour cream, all wrapped up and cooked in a quesadilla press. Wow.
• Summer Sausage, Cheese, and Crackers. My inability to resist this particular snack is a vestige of being raised in the midwest, I think. Sure, my fellow southerners like summer sausage, but I don’t believe they understand my deep and abiding love for this fatty snack.
• Peanut Butter Kisses from the Mary Jane Company. I love these things. I can literally sit and eat them until my abdomen aches and my noggin rings with a sugar headache. At that point, I begin to think, “Maybe I should only eat 11 or 12 more.”
• Golden Corral. Go ahead. Click the link, then read the menu. I’ll wait… Now, tell me this: Who wouldn’t want to eat about three great big plates off that buffet? I only allow myself to go to Golden Corral once or twice a year, but when I do, it’s serious business.

Juggernaut’s turn, although I take issue with this whole “guilt” thing. I don’t feel guilty about what I eat. As a matter of fact, I don’t feel guilty about much of anything. Must be part and parcel of doing no wrong. [insert retching sounds from the others here at the DP] Anyway, here’s my list of foods that will likely kill me:

• Like BRP, I’m going with JITB’s Ultimate Bacon Cheeseburger. If at the time of my order I feel like adding a few more minutes on the end of my life, I’ll drop the bacon.
• I can honestly say that I have never had pizza that I didn’t like. Chuck E. Cheese’s version comes the closest, but I’ll eat it if I’m dragged to some 6-year-old’s birthday party. But my favorite pizza (at least chain-wise) is Pizza Hut’s Deep Dish Meat Lovers. Pepperoni, Italian sausage, ham, bacon and beef. God, I want some pizza. Whose bright idea was it to ask me for this at lunch? I’m blaming TallGirl.
• Twizzlers. Anytime I go to a movie, I have a large Mr. Pibb and a big bag of Twizzlers. It’s my routine. There are those out there who do not like licorice. I say they have no taste and should not bother expressing opinions on candy.
• Blue Bell Peppermint ice cream. I love any peppermint ice cream, but Blue Bell wins out because 1) it’s Blue Bell and 2) Blue Bell is made in Texas. Unfortunately, peppermint is considered a “seasonal” flavor and is only out around Christmas time. Damn Blue Bell.
• Last but not least, easy-made nachos at home. I take a big pile of Tostitos and dump an obscene amount of shredded cheddar on them, then nuke it for 40 seconds (yes, I have the time down). Pour a cup of salsa over the top and you have a great late night snack.

Magnus here. Nothing like peer pressure to make me actually write instead of maintaining my site and WORK. You know, to pay the bills? But here we go.

• Taco Bell #3. With mild sauce. (And two soft steak tacos. But don’t tell.)
• Swedish Chocolate. Mmm . . . Marabou.
• Herring. Pickled. With mustard sauce.
• Caviar. Kalle’s. On a sandwich. Oh wait, that’s actually good for me. Nevermind.
• Meatballs. With lots of sauce and lingon berries and mashed potatoes. Preferably made by my mom. (Hey Mom? I’m hungry, please send some, huh?)
• Bacon. How we got this far down the list without bacon, I don’t understand. It’s a major food group, people!

I’m originally from Philadelphia, and now that I’ve spent a decade living in California, I’m astonished by how horrible my Back-East Eating Habits are.

I’ve been living in Eastern Daylight Time since late night Saturday, and have consumed, on average, 13,240,000 calories per day.  I have eaten:

• Ham & cheese omelette with a side of pancakes and plenty of syrup
• Iced lemon pound cake… for breakfast
• A sandwich slathered in blue cheese dressing, with a side of chips
• Canneloni in cream sauce
• French toast, sausage, bacon, pancakes and fruit salad (guilt begins to set in)
• Ham & cheese sandwich and fruit salad (guilt becomes more intense)
• Vegetarian burrito bowl from Chipotle (not the worst thing ever)
• Chocolate… and chocolate
• Donuts
• Horrible pizza
• Chocolate
• A deep-fried chicken sandwich with wing sauce, ranch dressing and fries
• More donuts

I still haven’t had any cheesesteaks, hoagies, soft pretzels, Tastykakes, good pizza or any other fat and calorie-laden favorites, so I have all of that to look forward to tomorrow and Thursday.  If I can make it back to California on the 10th with even one pair of pants that can still button, it will be a miracle.

The question isn’t really whether I spend my money on organic products.  The question is whether I buy into the organic theme.  And lately, I’m just not sure.

I’m an avid farmer’s market shopper, but as I make my buying decisions — $1 more per basket for organic vs. conventional strawberries, $1.50 more per pound for organic apples — I find myself hesitating.  Am I shopping at the market for organic produce, or am I shopping there because the items are fresh-picked and better quality than what I can get at my local supermarket?  More often than not, the answer is quality.

That’s not to say that I’m not concerned about pesticides.  When I grow my own veggies at home, I’m very careful to not use chemical solutions to fight against the wee beasties that may be trying to eat my sugar snap peas and tomatoes.  Yet somehow, when the pest battle happens at a corporate farm, I’m less concerned about the results.  Out of sight, out of mind?  Naive, yes, but I’m fairly certain that I’m not the only one who feels that way.

Still, I’ve been strangely attached to organic milk, for reasons that I can’t quite explain.  I’ve been fairly mindlessly picking up my organic milk each week, assuming that there was some sort of great benefit to it, but this week I finally caught a glimpse of the price difference.  My organic milk was 117% more expensive than its conventional counterpart.  117%!  No wonder they keep the organic milk in a separate refrigerator.  Did I really need milk that cost twice as much, especially when most, if not all milk here in California appears to be labeled  rBGH-free?  And why am I so weirdly fixated on organic milk when I don’t apply the same standards to cheese, yogurt, sour cream or ice cream?

There’s ongoing debate about the health benefits of organic vs. conventional, but it seems to me that the biggest distinction comes in the final paragraph of this article from WebMD:

“From these studies examining the differences between organic milk and regular milk, it seems clear that the diet of the cows may be one of the most important factors. Most organic cows are pasture-fed as opposed to grain-fed, and it’s their natural diet that leads to superior quality milk. So, it’s not simply organic milk that holds the prize, it’s organic, pasture-fed milk that does the body better.” [italics mine]

My milk doesn’t tell me anything about what the cows were eating.  Are they grass-fed cows?  How much grass do they have to eat before they’re considered grass-fed vs. grain-fed?  Is my organic milk any healthier than the stuff that costs half as much?

Next week, I’m going to read the labels and see what I can learn about my cows’ diets.  If I can’t find any useful information, then I’m going to be saving a few dollars on next week’s grocery bill.