SlutWalk

[megabyteme]

It would be interesting to compare the average Aus diet to the US. Ours is shit- by design. Corn subsidies have a lot to play in this. It is cheaper and easier to find low cost, low quality foods than it is to find anything affordable that is healthy. Actually, a lot of the items sold as "healthy" really aren't either.

[iLOVENZB]

The "healthy" aspect is the same here in some respect. We don't really have a staple diet. Because of the ethnic diversity in this country people will be eating anything from Tom Yum to Lamb on the spit, unless of coarse you're in a house with tall, blonde hair blue eyes individuals then you'll probably be having Eggs, bacon and cheese for breakfast, baked beans on toast for lunch and a BBQ for dinner with a $2 loaf of slice bread. I crashed at a mates places a couple of times, he and his mates are Aboriginals and we had chip sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

It's not really fair to compare "eating out" between two countries because I don't really know if all Americans eat McDonalds everyday like we are shown in news reports. Unless you're around 13-25 you're not going to be eating fast food everyday. I think you'll find that it's the kids and incompetent teen mums who rely on welfare are willing to $5.00 for a $2.50 meal and still think it's a good deal.

There is the odd obese person around but nothing as bad as what we're seeing from America. Are the portions over there really larger than ours?

According to Calorie King (see link) a small drink is 340ml and large drink is 624ml.

After watching Super Size Me (hilariously inaccurate film btw) the drink he had was like two times the size of our large. Super Size Me is like a vegetarian trying to expose the treatment of animals for mass production.

I lived on a farm for pretty much all my childhood. The farm was for meat - chooks, cattle and sheep. Most of the income came from the chickens, we supplied Steggles. In Australia there are no hormones or performance enhancement agents given to the animals it was abolished around the 80's - Yet we still have vegans and tree huggers trying to sell us this old bullshit as propaganda.

I never understood why the supposed documentaries tried to make out the farmers as abusive, immoral beings who only care about the profit margins. What gain would the farmer get in stressing an animal to the point it loses weight?

I have to find the clip on YouTube, one thing that shit me was that the narrator tried to make out that the birds had their head cut off and sometimes they miss the chop and then proceedes to the boiling pool to remove feathers (boiled alive). No just no! The bird has its head cut off then proceeds to a pool so it gets stunned (I think vice versa) then they go into the pool to have its feathers removed. The water is not "boiling", nobody wants a pre-boiled chicken.

Anyway, I think this is the longest post I've posted in the lounge. No doubt there's spelling and grammatical errors. Judging from some posts in the lounge this is probably as comparable as a respectable royal announcing something of self importance.

[megabyteme]

Sorry for the delay, NZB. I appreciate the effort you made answering my question.

As for drink size, yes, we have ridiculously large portions. It is not uncommon to see either 32oz, or even 64oz sizes. That equates to 946.35295 ml for the 32oz/1 quart size drink. The sad thing is that we are almost encouraged to purchase the mega-sized drinks because the difference between a super-size, and a much smaller drink is often in the $0.20 range.

I can see the stereotype of poor/welfare people eating fast-food daily, but it seems to spill over into the (shrinking) middle-class, too. There has been a shift in these restaurants to provide a more upscale-ish menu. We find ourselves eating in these places too often, ordering too much, and spending more than we expect.

I really have to wonder where these trends will end up. They certainly are not healthy, or sustainable. As more of the world is exposed to McDonaldization, global diets will change. Farm-based foods like you described (the only ones I view as a healthy diet- one without commercial tampering, and force-modified feeding) is disappearing. There is some hope- through the popularity of cooking shows, that people will learn how to make meals from scratch, using quality sources. However, even those of us who know how to cook fall victim to convenience and "settling" for lower quality due to budgets, time limitations, and laziness.

[iLOVENZB]

At the moment the middle-class are turning into the lower class due the taxes being payed to keep welfare afloat. The upper-class aren't (rightfully) stupid enough to pay for a doleblugger to keep getting benefits. Businesses (if they haven't already) will start getting taxed and then society will regret it once the trickling effect starts to happen.

I don't know how large corportations like BP operate but just because you're earning $100k gross doesn't mean that it's a profitable business. You still have to pay for workcover, rent, taxes, wages, goods, services (ie electricians doing work on establishment etc). Take that $100k and minus the expenses and you're not left with much.

I was looking at joint-purchasing a bakery in Tasmania. The wages didn't add up so I contacted the agent and he sent me some more figures. The 300k profit didn't include the wages of the owners. If the owner was paying himself (which legally he should at least be paying workcover) then the profitability dramatically decreased.

Rise in cooking shows or cooking dramas? There's not really much to choose from on FTA TV here. I think Masterchef is the main one here. I enjoyed the first season but it's turned into a drama with no real skills being taught (except on the MasterClass days). There is the big breasted pommy chick which is on the ABC, can't remember her name. Only problem is he dishes are either too simple or I could find a better recipe in a cookbook.

To be fair I haven't seen much cooking shows in the U.S.. Ones I did find worth while was Alton Brown's Good Eats. Does Good Eats still get aired? Last pre was in 2009: Good.Eats.S13E06.Feeling.Punchy.HDTV.XviD-SAiNTS