Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

http://prod.newsday.com/blogs/long-island/feed-me-1.812004/bobby-flay-betters-his-burger-palace-1.1370486

Good news as now the burgers can be cooked to order.

Even though this place is only a few minutes from our house we have made other choices for our burgers.

$7.50+ for just a burger is pretty steep compared to other places in the area. Add in a side and a drink and it totals to $12+.

The burgers itself are pretty good. I had the Crunchburger and my wife had the Palace Classic. I like my burgers medium rare and as covered above it was not possible. The burgers had a nice char/crunch on the patty and the buns were nice and soft. The fries were ok and the onion rings were decent. The shakes were nothing spectacular.

What bothered me was that there were seperate windows and cooks for the sides, shake, and burgers. We watched our onion ring and fries sit on the counter while waiting for our burgers. Our shake had the longest wait and was a goopy mess when it came with everything else.

American Roadside Burgers in Smithtown was a cheaper bet with burgers a notch below.

Come on people, the reason 'empty calories' and 'junk food' are normally a bad thing is that, when you eat them, you're not usefully contributing to the key elements of a balanced diet, so you will end up needing to consume more food in order to get the recommended daily allowances to keep your body running in good condition.

If you live in a third world country such as India, much of your diet consists of the empty calories in white rice, and you'll probably end up with the diseases and early deaths that malnutrition brings. At the other extreme, the likely result in a Westerner is that you'll be eating more calories than you're burning, so you'll put on weight.

Once in shape, swimmers generally don't have a huge mass of muscle to build or maintain, so their requirements for proteins, vitamins, and so on are only 1-2 times those of 'normal' people [ref]. But they have a massively larger need for calories (i.e. 4-5 times), and of course the easiest way to get that massive dose of additional calories is through 'empty calories' - lots of fats and sugars.

If he were to keep the same diet once he stops swimming competitively he'd be breaking scales not records!

Certainly Mr. Phelps should cause those in the nutrition left to think critically about their eat healthy be healthy mantra. There are many in the 20 something age group who eat whatever whenever without any discernable health malady. Sure Olympic atheletes are more active than the average person but are they super healthier? Do they live longer? Are they 100% disease free? Are there 200 year old former atheletes hanging out that I am unaware of?

The nutrition fact that is often missed is that all foods fit into a "healthy" diet, even chocolate chips pancakes and ham sandwiches on white. Those who villify certain foods labeling them as "junk" are fishing in an empty pond and are never able to reel in real evidence.

My nutrition advice to Mike, stick to the diet you are on for it is the "Right Nutrition".

Oh yeah and Phelps at 6'4", wearing size 14 shoes (also used in the single kayak races later on) seems to use his calories efficiently, don't we think? as Right N points out, look at the results. And look at the man's body. Do you see an unhealthy man? He's not skinny, but he is stream-lined. He's able to swim 8 races in, what, 6 days? Breaking records (some of which he set) in every single race (one was only an olympic record, the other 7 were world records) some won thanks to 3 teammates. It does seem like lots of sugar and carbohydrates, but it clearly fuels his engine.

None of us can compare what we do and how we eat to the regimen of an elite athlete, no matter how active we are, can we? It's just flat out different for them.

Someone left a comment regarding the "empty calories" in the things Mr. Phelps was eating. Although the things he eats are not viewed as health food by the health gestapo they are far from empty calories. Just look at the results Mike is getting, he is a champion. Do a little more research next time.

@FastFoodCritic: I wash bananas before peeling because whatever is on the banana skin would be transferred from my hands to the fruit. Next time you slice one into your cereal, consider how the banana travels from Ecuador, Costa Rica, Colombia, Honduras, the Philippines, Panama, or Guatemala (see http://www.banana.com/farming.html) to your market, and what dreck the fruit has collected on its way. Blech!

Of course I wash melons before I eat them. The knife goes through the skin and carries whatever was on the skin onto the flesh.

Yes, I wash them, the knife is going through the outer rind that have been sitting in a bin at the market, where it's potentially been handled (not to mention the trip to market, passing through who knows what?). Takes a minute, insures my health.

I prefer mines cut off the cob.

bobcatsteph3 wrote:
Another yummy variation on grilled corn: Grill in husk, then instead of butter, spread a little mayo, sprinkle with Anchote chili powder, some grated parm cheese, and a squirt of lime. Sounds crazy, but it's delicious!!!
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I've had corn just like the above mentioned. It looked crazy when the Mexican vendor was making it up on a stick, however my father said he'd had it before and it was great. He was right, it was absolutely fabulous!

FYI: The average ear of corn has 800 kernels, always arranged in 16 rows. There is one piece of silk for each kernel.