A reader wrote me about an ABC segment on a guy named Chicken Charlie who fries Twinkies, Oreos and anything else he can get his hands on it seems. And it looks like he’s eaten a few of his creations as well. He mentions that he is young and has a lot of time left to experiment. Looking at the crap he fries, I’m not so sure. Especially if he eats a lot of it.

Here is the link to the video. Enjoy if you can.

Hat tip: Joe Matasic

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The above pictured monstrosity will probably be showing up at an event near you soon. It’s a hot dog covered with chunks of French fries then coated with batter and deep fried. And it ain’t something I read about at the Indiana State Fair, but a commonly sold item on the streets of Seoul, South Korea. (Click here for more photos)

French fries aren’t the only thing that coat hot dogs in Korea. Kiosk vendors
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A couple of days ago while on a 3-hour flight the attendant came by asking if I wanted anything to drink. I typically drink sparkling water and/or coffee on flights, but at that time something else sounded a little better. I saw a can of cranberry juice cocktail so I asked for that.

I poured some into a little plastic glass and sipped away while I was reading a medical paper. As the flight wore on I finished off the can. MD happened to pick it up and said to me: Do you have any idea how many carbs were in that can you just drank? She turned the label so I could read that had just consumed about 60 grams of sugar. I couldn’t believe it, but there is was in black and white. MD told me that all cranberry products have a ton of sugar because cranberry juice is extremely sour.

I can’t remember the brand of juice I drank. I intended to keep the can, but when I wasn’t paying attention the flight attendant came by and picked it up. Out of sight it went out of mind, and it didn’t think about it until I was long off the plane.

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MD and I stopped in a Whole Foods the other day to load up, and I came across this bottle of tea while I was looking for something cold and carb-free to drink.

The manufacturer of this product (and I’m sorry, but I can’t remember what it was, and, unfortunately, I didn’t take a picture of the other side) is either ignorant or thinks that its customers are ignorant. I’m sure the ‘brains’ of this outfit either read or heard that high-fructose corn syrup was a substance that is not healthful. I suppose that they came to the conclusion that it was the corn syrup that was the villain, but it’s the fructose in the corn syrup that’s the problem. The other component of corn syrup is glucose, which is much less harmful than fructose.

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I stumbled onto a great YouTube video of a 2004 report on obesity by the late ABC news anchor, Peter Jennings. In it Mr. Jennings blames the unholy alliance between government and the food industry for making us all fat.

There are many amazing things about this video, not the least of which is that both Michael Jacobson and Marion Nestle come off looking like they have good sense. Even Michael Jacobson, and that’s a real feat. Both give answers to Jennings’ questions that are reasonable and even sensible. Jacobson even goes so far as to say that exercise doesn’t bring about weight loss.

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