PrintSilly Things People Believe About Food
My sister and I were talking about the recent tuna-mercury scare. Her question?
"Can't you just cook the tuna to get rid of the mercury?"
Last time I checked, heat can do many wonderful things. Evaporating heavy metal from fish isn't one of them.
I also saw a forum where a poster asked if it was possible to leave the bananas out of a "recipe" for oatmeal, and at work a woman wanted a latte made with half and half but without whipped cream (because of the calories) - whipped heavy whipping cream has less calories per tablespoon than half and half!
What other strange things do you people think about food?
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48 Comments:
Apparently, that you can never get enough of it?
srhcb at 4:06PM on 01/27/08
That it is hard and/or takes a long time to prepare food. How else to explain things like:
frozen chopped onions
frozen mashed potatoes
bottled, minced garlic
those excessively packaged lunchbox combos of deli meat, cheese and bread
It's a real pet peeve of mine. People spend a lot of extra money on prepared food items of inferior quality that have lots of additives and lots of extra packaging because Madison Ave has convinced them it is either too hard or takes to long to chop an onion, mince some garlic, cook a potato or stuff some sliced ham and cheese into a baggie -- or better yet, a re-usable plastic container.
I understand & appreciate that many people do not have the time to cook an elaborate meal every night. I do not suggest that everyone bone their own chicken breasts all the time. But I also know that a good, simple meal can be prepared using real food fairly quickly. (People have built entire brands around the premise :-) And it will be better for you and cheaper to boot! And for people with families, it teaches children better food habits early.
Gettin' worked up! Better stop typing and just post this now!
kjgibson at 4:36PM on 01/27/08
How about the person that goes to McDonalds and orders a double quarter pounder with cheese, large fries and a Diet Coke. Like the amount of calories saved from the Diet drink is going to matter after that 1500 calorie splurge.
mommyme at 4:54PM on 01/27/08
@kjgibson - I'm resigned to the onions and the garlic. But what about those pre-sliced apples?
KarynMC at 5:22PM on 01/27/08
an ex once told me that the browned/bruise parts of a banana were particularly bad for you. yet banana bread (most of the time made from old overripe bananas) was perfectly fine.
ceforrester at 5:29PM on 01/27/08
While working in restaurants and entertaining at home, I am amazed how many people have told me they are vegetarians, yet request a boneless skinless chicken breast. Have I missed something about chicken over the years?
dleej at 5:34PM on 01/27/08
My boyfriend believed for the longest time that the red skin on peanuts was extremely poisonous and could not be ingested. We went to the grocery store, I showed him that peanuts with the seed skins intact are sold to the general public—for consumption—and the myth was busted.
I wholeheartedly enjoy dispelling common misconceptions about food and cooking. Anyone else with me?
kmnola at 7:12PM on 01/27/08
@kjgibson - Amen! I struggle with my mom about exactly what you said. All she eats are frozen Weight Watcher/Lean Cuisine dinners, because they are "light". I told her there is a ton of sodium, sugar and preservatives in those meals, so they aren't good for her even if they are low in calories. She doesn't like cooking and she lives alone, so she doesn't see the point. But she did eat a salad at home the other night, so there is hope.
When I was a kid, I believed that Fig Newtons were made of ground up worms. How silly is that, haha!
erinlovestoeat at 7:27PM on 01/27/08
I could believe that Fig Newtons are made of worms.
renzata at 7:45PM on 01/27/08
Does anyone else get annoyed with the joke about why get a diet soda if you're eating all the other stuff? Well, I sure do! At least the people who eat that kind of stuff are saving themselves an additional 310 calories. Those calories can then be put towards the apple pie ; )
Carosone at 8:20PM on 01/27/08
That buying local helps the environment.
bravian at 8:57PM on 01/27/08
That if meat eaters simply become vegetarians they will lose lots of weight. Which - not so much. Trading in the burger for eggplant parmesan doesn't exactly trim the waistline. Which does tend to be how many of them do it. They seldom go the whole grain/steamed veggie route, which would totally work.
chisai at 9:20PM on 01/27/08
One of my big pet peeves is when people rather drink a diet soda because it has 0 calories instead drinking a freshly squeezed/prepared fruit juice because it has too much sugar. To me, sodas are a bomb of chemicals that should never be ingested... I can't understand why my mom allowed us to have them. I guess we did not know better then.
Another is when people insist on eating those frozen prepared foods - Lean Cuisines, etc. cooked God knows when, thinking they're good for them. They're just eating old food. The thing they could learn about those is portion control... the rest, it's just a bunch of chemicals and preservatives.
And to chisai's comment above - you're totally right. I actually lost more weight when I decided not to drink any more sodas 10 years ago than when I decided to become vegetarian. New vegetarians need to watch out on cheese and too much simple carb consumption. I've been there...
Madelyn
KarmaFree Cooking
MadelynRodriguez at 10:45PM on 01/27/08
1) That mushrooms are sponges that absorb water if you wash them. This is NOT true. Mushrooms may be like sponges, but they are like sponges that are saturated with water. This, naturally, explains why when you cook mushrooms, they release a ton of water and shrink to about 1/3 their raw size. Even if the mushrooms did absorb any more water (which, I reiterate, they don't), it would cook off with all the water that's already in the mushrooms naturally! But they don't absorb any water, so it doesn't matter anyways!
2) That sugary granola is a health food. Unless you make it yourself and know what goes in it, I wouldn't make any assumptions. My roommates are both extremely health-conscious, but they both eat sugary cereal blends with 2% milk for breakfast. I don't get it!?
3) That sugary, flavored yogurts (especially the full fat kinds) are good for you--especially when topped with a cup or so of the granola mentioned above! Eat plain, and add your own natural sweetener and fruit!
4) I agree with all the previously mentioned "healthy" vegetarian comments. As a vegetarian myself, I definitely have experience avoiding the token vegetarian dish on a menu (invariably loaded with cheese, cream, pastry, butter, etc) in favor of a salad or soup combo. This is particularly true for me because I actually did originally become a vegetarian to lose weight, but I only succeeded because my "vegetarianism" led to two eating disorders--not so healthy after all!
5) Most of all, that sugary syrup-laden, whip creamed drinks at coffee shops are real coffee. They may taste good, but at that point, you're drinking dessert...
ChristineB at 12:30AM on 01/28/08
The silliest thing I can think of that people believe about food is that it is only something solid (or liquid, as the case may be) on the plate in front of them - that it is a precise and measurable scientific thing which can be broken down into calories and chemicals, weight and color, all varieties of definition that are controllable and therefore subservient to human actions.
Food is more than that. It is memory. It is history. It is emotion. And it most definitely is metaphor in an enormous way, and refusing to see or accept that fact is simply . . . well, I will use your word which is gentler than any I would use - it is silly.
Trying to separate food from this into simply a thing to eat, something that is measurable, is not only silly it is a loss. It is like listening to music while purposely making oneself somewhat tone-deaf - like hearing the music only through the beat, the notes, but dismissing the emotion or other connections that arise.
I've seen people become quite enraged at the idea being presented that food is more than a measurable thing, that it links to the emotional, that it is definitely metaphoric, that the connections do exist. This philosophy, or reality, makes them close their eyes and shudder. They say, no - I just want to eat. I just want to taste my food with my mouth. Let's keep it at that.
What a loss. What a crying shame.
What a limitation, both in life and to a genre.
Karen Resta at 6:34AM on 01/28/08
How boneless chicken manages to walk around.
RichardCrystal at 9:47AM on 01/28/08
That healthy food equals low calorie. As if the goal of healthy eating is eating less calories. Some of the healthiest foods (olive oil, nuts, etc) are loaded with calories. We should still eat them, just watch how much of it.
That we should eliminate anything from our diets. What ever happened to eating diverse food in moderation? Even a soda every once in a while won't do much harm. The problem is indulgence and in excess and only eating not-so-nutritious foods only.
That we have so many opinions on what is right or wrong about the foods we eat and yet over half the population is obese.
That cooking books and cookware are being sold more than ever in history and less people are cooking at home than at any point in history.
We like to read and talk about cooking, very few actually do it.
andros69 at 11:30AM on 01/28/08
People apparently believe that anyone who orders a diet soda is trying to lose weight and should adjust the rest of their menu accordingly. Diet Coke tastes completely different from regular Coke. Most people I know drink it due to taste preference - the fact that it has no calories is simply a bonus. (And yes I know it is full of chemicals but we're all allowed our vices!)
jennie at 11:56AM on 01/28/08
I'm still a quite surprised that the relationship between aspartame (and aspartates in general) and and UTIs is relatively unknown (I had to discover this the hard way), given the huge overlap between the populations that consume the former and suffer from the latter.
This definitely is not to say that an occasional diet soda is going fry your kidneys/bladder/assorted tubing, but I am amazed that so many people think that this stuff is fairly innocuous (and to make things worse, it appears in a good many soft drinks that also contain sugar, making the whole thing altogether pointless).
And I'm still perplexed by those who believe that boiled vegetables have considerably fewer calories than those that have been stir-fried in very little oil.
And finally, apropos of boiling, I'm with kjgibson on wondering why people think it must take much longer to make something delicious than something wretched-tasting.
mongoose at 12:14PM on 01/28/08
I like the philosophy of the local food movement. I do think it CAN be great for the environment. I know it isn't as simple as local food = no carbon mileage, but it is a start, right?
Elizabelle at 12:49PM on 01/28/08
A friend of mine has two things: first, that the skin of a potato is relaly unhealthy and possibly poisonous. I never got that one. and second, that the she would never eat the dark black/brown spots on french fries, because she was sure that that meant that a rotten portion had been cooked. In reality, Native Americans (not to mention thousands of potato skins fans) have been eating the skins for ages with no real problems that I have heard of. And also, that those spots on french fries are actually just where that potato had an extra concentration of sugar, so that when it was cooked, it cooked too fast and burned. And those, by the way, are the tastiest bits! :)
Traveller at 3:00PM on 01/28/08
I totally agree with the vegetarian comments... I'm one myself, and when people ask me why, one of their first guesses is always "Is it for health/weight management?"
Yes, I am a vegetarian partially because of the health benefits, and because I feel healthier and better without eating meat. But no, I do not avoid meat because I think meat makes people fat... especially for a lacto-ovo veghead, there are SO many opportunities to eat veryyyy high-cal and even extremely unhealthy things!
not that those things are so bad, per se. It just always surprises me how so many meat-eaters equate vegetarianism with weight loss.
oh those silly meat eaters. and oblivious vegetarians.
: ]
gretchenx5 at 5:30PM on 01/28/08
That "all natural" on a food label means ANYTHING. The term is completely not regulated (unlike "reduced fat" or "organic," for example) -- you can pretty much slap an "all natural" label on nuclear waste and no one's going to say a word about it.
And anyway, if you read the label and there are 50 ingredients, and you can't pronouce most of them, it's probably not all natural! Hello!
CookiePie at 5:42PM on 01/28/08
When you are Southeast Asian, your elders will tell you certain things about food so that you can eat the undesirable parts and they can be left with the best parts of food. For example; "If you eat the eyeball of a fish, you'll be able to see very well" or "If you eat the tail of a fish, you can swim fast!" or my personal fave "If you eat burned rice, your penis will grow!" hahaa I would ask if it pertained to me, b/c I'm a girl...but I "still should eat it" LOL I know some people who still haven't realized that elders were trying to trick them!
FoodieCutie at 7:17PM on 01/28/08
There was a widespread belief in my elementary school that the crust of bread (white, of course) was where all the vitamins were (and if you didn't eat the crust you were a baby).
renzata at 7:33PM on 01/28/08
the mistaken belief that adding red pepper to a dish makes it cajun, yes our food is spicy but it's because we old timers use lots of SPICES to turn cheap cuts of meat into a delicious meal. when i was a child i don't remember anyone that didn't have a large herb garden and none of these plots grew hot peppers.
olddad at 8:52PM on 01/28/08
Thank you, olddad! Being from Louisiana, I get so outraged when someone coats something with red pepper and calls it "blackened cajun" food. I retorted to the waiter who said this to my friend, "No, it's blackened, burned, RUINED food!"
The point of cajun and creole food is not to burn your mouth and make you sweat. The point is to give you savory food you will love to eat!
Editmom at 12:01PM on 01/29/08
My grandfather told me the reason fresh figs were "crunchy" in the middle was that bugs crawled inside them when they were still on the tree.
I do love figs, but I'm still not sure about this one!
Editmom at 12:02PM on 01/29/08
Being a vegetarian in no way automatically makes you healthy or weight less - my family is from India and most of the women are vegetarians ( the younger ones born here usually are not) and not one of them is skinny or in perfect health. There are a lot of ways to make veggies not so healthy, frying being my favorite!:)
allenlyn75 at 12:49PM on 01/29/08
That adding salt to water will raise/lower the pasta water sufficiently to cook it faster.
That vegetable skins are dirty and inedible.
That watermelon seeds will sprout in your belly.
Oh goodness, I could go on for days...
EtherMaiden at 2:31PM on 01/29/08
That mahi-mahi is a dolphin! It drives me absolutely crazy that people take something that they hear and go with it without understanding what they are talking about!
ChristineB beat me to it - that mushrooms should not be washed because they will absorb water.
That searing meat "seals in" its juices.
That "all natural" automatically means "good for you". Rattlesnake venom is certainly all natural, so what does it mean?
brooke29 at 4:36PM on 01/29/08
I had a friend in college who swore she was deathly allergic to shrimp... but NOT fried shrimp. Somehow fried shrimp was okay. A miracle of science?
em at 4:41PM on 01/29/08
My favorite is the "Gourmet" label that companies put on still crappy edibles. I pity the fools who pay the extra money for the same junk that's in a fancy container with Gourmet stamped on it. Yeeck!
Bunnyman at 6:42PM on 01/29/08
That swallowed bubble gum stays in your stomach for seven years.
clarice at 6:48PM on 01/29/08
allenlyn75: I have to say, I've never had better eggplant than when I was in India =)
to chime in on FoodieCutie's S.E. Asian rant: that eating leeks or "suan" (which sounds phonetically similar to the Chinese word for "count") will give you superior prowess at Mathematics. I hate leeks and my mom points to that as the reason why I can't do Math to save my life.
onedaylingers at 9:13PM on 01/29/08
That all grandmothers can cook, a myth that permeates all food magazines, from the down-home to the sophisticated.
BaHa at 9:41AM on 01/30/08
One that comes to mind... that you shouldn't eat the pointy end of a green bean; it should be cut-off and discarded. (I only cut off the stem end.)
stlwaters at 9:51AM on 01/30/08
@BaHa - My one grandmother's an amazing baker. I grew up worshipping her cookies, quick breads, and pies.
My other grandmother? Her one claim to fame is "Party Cake" - storebought vanilla cake mix with Jell-O vanilla pudding, canned pineapple, walnuts, shredded coconut, and Cool Whip piled on top. She's very proud of it. I can't fathom why.
When grandma #2 wanted to quit smoking, my mother hid her cigarettes in a mixing bowl. It took over a decade for #2 to discover them. Oddly enough, she collects antique cookware, like potato ricers, though her potatoes come in boxes.
KarynMC at 10:00AM on 01/30/08
When I used to bartend at a high-end steakhouse, I would have guests who were on low-carb diets (Atkin's or South Beach) eating a 16 oz. Sirloin, caesar salad (no croutons), steamed asparagus with hollandaise, and drinking martinis or a few glasses of wine. They would beg me to take away the bread basket, skip the baked potato, and heaven help me if I offered dessert. I guess they didn't realize that all alcoholic bevs are purely empty calories and many are loaded with carbs. Not to mention the 2,000 calorie dinner they just consumed. These are otherwise intelligent people with successful careers.
Remember that adage about all things in moderation...
wookie at 10:31AM on 01/30/08
@em- I've met folks that have those "allergy disconnects," and it drives me nuts, too. If you don't like something, just say you don't like it!
However, in your friend's defense, raw shrimp is often treated with thimerosol (sp?) as a preservative. When the shrimp is cooked, the preservative dissipates. If you wear contacts, you may notice that most liquid solutions say "thimerosol-free." It is a fairly common allergen, though I've never heard of anyone being "deathly allergic" to it. It usually causes hayfever-type symptoms.
Kerosena at 10:55AM on 01/30/08
But thimerosol contains mercury, and as KarynMC pointed out at the top of this thread, cooking temperatures can't vapourise heavy metals.
I think people are a bit fuzzy as to what an allergy precisely is, so it does seem like a good excuse for getting out of eating something disliked, particularly since simply saying 'I don't like ------' can feel rude, or is often dismissed or jeered at as childish.
mongoose at 1:03PM on 01/30/08
I have a friend who insists that calories are not a factor in weight gain, but that the weight of the food determines how much weight you gain. So, you can eat a pound of brocoli or a pound of chocolate cake and it will have the same effect on your waistline. Oh, if only that were true.....
My mom insists that the skin on fruits and veggies is so contaminated with pesticides that the only healthy way to eat them is to wash and peel the skin first. It drives me crazy because I know that the vitamins are most concentrated in the skin. The pesticides can not be that bad, can they? Can't we just wash them off like we always have in the past?
tracyd at 1:25PM on 01/30/08
@Editmom—Two words: Fig wasp.
I hate when people come up to me after hearing I keep kosher and are all "Oh, so that means all your food was blessed by a rabbi?" Man, that's annoying.
I have friends who won't even attempt to cook saying that it's too hard. But they won't even try! So they eat lots of pizza and other take-out foods all the time and then get bummed out about their clothing sizes. I offer to help them learn to cook and they turn me down. Gah!
Stufsocker at 2:15PM on 01/30/08
@tracyd - I think the pesticide-thing depends on fruit/vegetable involved. For example, it's impossible to really wash everything out of your broccoli, but a smooth-skinned fruit might not be so bad. Ideally, I would buy organic produce whenever I intended to eat the skin. But, uh, I earn hourly wages, so I'm just happy to have fruits and vegetables!
KarynMC at 2:19PM on 01/30/08
Hi all - here's a list of the most pesticide-laden fruits and vegetables, from the Environmental Working Group:
http://www.ewg.org/sites/foodnews/
Just be sure to wash any produce thoroughly -- even organic produce has some pesticides.
CookiePie at 2:42PM on 01/30/08
How about:
1) Olive oil has fewer calories than butter.
2) Drinking milk will make you lose weight.
3) You can't put yucca in soup (I bought yucca root and said I was going to put it in soup. My mother said, "You can't put yucca in soup." She perhaps meant, "You can't put yucca in soup and expect me to eat it").
KarynMC at 4:36PM on 01/30/08
eathermaiden "That adding salt to water will raise/lower the pasta water sufficiently to cook it faster.""
the reason for this is that by saltwater has a lower boiling point then regular water so it "boils faster" so they assume tha the food will cook faster as a result when in reality is jsut bubbles at a lower teperature
that said u should still salt it because thats where a huge amount of the flavor of pasta comes from
over all though im astounded at all the people that are badmouthing all these foods and trying to preach the vegitarian live well sorry to say not everyone wants to remove most of the enjoyment from there food
you only get one life and while we should eat healthy that doesnt meant we shouldnt eat some things or enjoymetn too its all about balance and controling our portions is the best thing we can do
personaly i dont think ive gone a day w/o meat in my life and im 6 ft 240 lbs but with less than 7 % body fat and in great health
so u cna eat meat and even junk foods and be healthy too so dont be so quick to judge us meat eaters my lil veg friends ;)
lspiderl at 7:18PM on 02/02/08
Sorry eathermaiden but you're wrong about the salt water. Salt actually raises the boiling point (temperature at which it will boil) so that the boiling water is hotter with salt than without. I'm not sure if the hotter water cooks pasta faster or if it is just that the higher temperature results in a better end product.
This is the same reason why cooking at high altitudes is a problem as the lower atmospheric pressure lowers the boiling point of water. Water boils at lower temperatures and so doesn't properly cook things since the water molecules can't get any hotter than the boiling point and still be in a liquid state.
rudbeckia at 2:14PM on 02/03/08