Monday, June 10, 2013

Happy Meal?



How would you feel if your kid was served a McDonald's Sausage McMuffin as part of the boxed lunch (to be eaten on the water) at a youth sailing regatta?


Is this the kind of healthy snack that we should be encouraging young athletes to eat?


What do you like to eat when you are sailing?


34 comments:

Baydog said...

Quahaugs and Mongolian beef.

Litoralis said...

They are marginally better than Uncrustables.
http://propercourse.blogspot.com/2007/08/uncrustables.html

Tillerman said...

Marginally better in taste? Or marginally better nutritionally?

George A said...

I don't eat anything while racing. I do take a bottle of water along. As for McDonalds food, I'm apparently too old for it--it makes me slightly nauseous.

Tillerman said...

Just looking at this picture makes me slightly nauseous. Imagine trying to eat one of those things - after it had gone cold and all the fat had congealed - while tossing around in waves, sitting in a small dinghy!

Tillerman said...

I am already beginning to regret writing this post as it is attracting a lot of comment spam with links to weight loss and dieting websites!

Baydog said...

And pork pies.

O Docker said...

I've often wondered if they don't make this stuff from the same imitation food they use for those display items on dessert carts.

I think someone once put one of these on a webcam and watched it for over a year with no apparent change.

Must be a practical solution for a yacht club - buy up a batch in the spring and they'll last a whole season.

Bursledon Blogger said...

A yachting magazine ran a piece about McDonalds opening a sail through restaurant on the Hamble River a few years ago - the April edition - I wonder would you order on port tack and then collect on starboard?

Mark R said...

Not sure about the happy meal (did a regatta really do that?), but what has happened to the "Cheat the nursing home" strapline? Have you moved into a nursing home ????

Tillerman said...

There do seem to be a lot of conflicting stories out there about the decomposition or non-decomposition of McSandwiches.

Check out for example The Decomposition of McDonald's Burgers and Fries, but only if you have a strong stomach.

Tillerman said...

Yes, it really happened at a youth regatta in Florida this weekend. Meka Taulbee of Sailfit "outed" them on her Facebook page. Meka is a tireless campaigner for more nutritious food at regattas and also volunteers to help regatta organizers plan better food for sailors, on the shore and on the water.

Congratulations on noticing that the "strapline" has disappeared. I was playing around with new header photos for the blog and it wasn't showing up well against any photo I liked, so I dropped it. Maybe I will put it somewhere else on the blog or maybe I should choose a new one? And no, I'm not in the nursing home.... yet.

Joe said...

I'm with you!

Baydog said...

Marmite

Tillerman said...

Now you are talking. As we have proved conclusively on this blog, Marmite is a superfood and an essential component of any serious athlete's training diet.

Baydog said...

Bananas. By now you may realize, Tillerman, that I'm taking food examples from the 'You might also like' feature at the end of your post every time I check in to your current publication. I think you may not realize, although you most likely do, that you've published many a food-related post.

Pandabonium said...

Wow. They start clogging arteries at an early age now, don't they? We take things like raisins, oranges, bananas, apple slices. If we get seriously hungry it's time for Mama's Kitchen...

Tillerman said...

Some people do recommend raisins and nuts and the like, but I find those a bit impractical on a small boat like a Laser in heavy weather, not to say not very satisfying. I do like energy bars and have an organic brand I like that doesn't get too stiff when frostbiting or too runny and messy when it's 90 degrees.

Tillerman said...

Oh! No I didn't realize that's where you were getting your inspiration. How clever of Mr. Google to recognize those connections. Strangely he's not serving me those kinds of posts. Maybe it knows you have a stronger connection to food than I do?

And yes, I do know I have written a lot of posts about food and drink. I guess I only really have four obsessions in my life so I write about those two and sailing. I couldn't possibly write about the fourth one.

I sometimes think I should tag those posts with a label for "Food and Drink" but it would take a while to find them all after eight years.

O Docker said...

You could try rubbing some Marmite into an old sailing glove and chewing on that when you got hungry.

They say nylon improves the taste of Marmite.

Pandabonium said...

Energy bars are good. What we do on the Lido is get set up on a long downwind so the boat is stable and K is free to open cooler and hand out the drinks and/or snacks. Obviously not practical for your situation.

Baydog said...

T-bone

Baydog said...

Powdermilk Biscuits

Fred said...

Thanks for this one. Reminds me to buy some energy bars at one of the "better shops" to take with me at my first regatta this year. Found some old ones in my hiking pants. Uurrgg, they looked ugly. Glad I did not take a banana... last autumn.

So really, my answer is: energy bar and a bottle of water nicely strapped on the boom with two elastics. Never forget to take off the paper or plastic labels. I do water the bottles at home for a while, for an easy peel off. Don´t want to dump the waste in the water.

Tillerman said...

Personally I like to use an energy drink on the water but I use one that I mix from powder and put it in a reusable bottle. That way I minimize both plastic and paper waste.

John in PDX said...

A sausage McMuffin sounds like a good idea once in a while. So does bourbon or a hot dog. I smoke a cigar every once in awhile.
I like Gatorade but that's bad for me too so I only drink it on really hot days.
I sneak looks at pretty women on the street when my wife isn't looking right at me - that can be really unhealthy.
I guess I am not a good man.

George A said...

Stupid life style choices only become moral issues when they impact other people. If a man's life of gluttony, alcohol abuse, tobacco use, etc. ruins his health and in turn burdens his family's financial and emotional well being, then his choices are affecting more than just himself. Many age-related diseases are in part a reflection of one's controllable choices.

Tillerman said...

Food isn't really a moral issue. Or is it?

I'm all for a bit of indulgence from time to time. A little bit of what's bad for you can be good for you, I say.

I wonder what the kids thought about the Sausage McMuffins? I bet most of them enjoyed it.

I guess I am not a good man either.

Tillerman said...

So if you eat a Sausage McMuffin at a youth regatta you will grow up to be a chain-smoking alcoholic glutton and be a burden on your family's financial and emotional well being?

Is that the same as Cheat the nursing home. Die on your LASER?

George A said...

No, Tillerman. An occasional fast food sandwich is not going to put a kid on some slippery slope of doom. The human animal is tougher than that. Thirty years of poor choices on the other hand can easily shorten both health and life spans. Meka is quite right in providing a good example to both youth and adult sailors. One of the differences between our generation and the current one is that things we considered as treats are now the expected norm rather than the once in a blue moon sort of thing. If you draw a curve showing the growth of the processed food industry over time and another curve tracking child obesity over the same period, the two curves are suspiciously similar.

Tillerman said...

And if you draw a curve showing global warming over time you will find it is suspiciously similar to the curve showing the reduction in number of pirates over the same time period. Clearly the lack of pirates is causing global warming. Or perhaps childhood obesity is causing the growth of the processed food industry?

And we never had a McDonalds Sausage McMuffin as a treat when I was a kid. I had never even heard of such a thing. A treat was to go to my aunt's house to see a black and white TV.

George A said...

I never saw a McDonald's 'til I was a driving age teenager. They didn't do breakfast back then. My dog was fond of the hamburgs. He's dead now, but come to think of it, he did live fairly long for a dog. I'll root around in my collection of journal articles and see if I can attach that figure with the "suspicious" curve. Can one copy/paste into a blogger comment box? I've never tried that.

Tillerman said...

You can copy/paste text into a comments box, but not images I think. Copy the URL if it's online somewhere.

My point was that correlation is not proof of causation. Just because two curves match does NOT prove that one phenomenon causes the other, or vice versa.

Doug Perry said...

I love Sausage McMuffins! My favorite sailing food are grapes! Easy to eat!

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