Thursday, May 3, 2007

Salad Night



Last night I got home late without having eaten dinner, so I searched for something that could pass for dinner food. What I came up with was a bag of salad that I bought the day before. Salad. Why not? From what I hear, salad is good for you. It contains green things and vegetables and it isn't fattening. I dumped the whole thing into a salad bowl, added some croutons and balsamic vinagrette dressing and looked forward to a healthy meal. It was quite a lot of salad, enough for three salad eaters, but I figured that I could handle it and feel better for doing so. So I took the salad into the living room, turned on the tube and proceeded to get healthy. It took a while to finish, but it wasn't bad, and I felt that I had done something good for my nutrient-starved body.

Unfortunately, on the same coffee table with my bowl of green goodness was most of a bag of Twizzlers which I had opened the day before and forgotten to return to the pantry. So, having had such a light, healthful dinner, I figured I would treat myself to a few Twizzlers as a dessert of sorts. Well, one twiz led to another, and soon, and with some effort on my part, the whole bag was gone.

Now the question is, does the consumption of 30 Twizzlers somehow cancel out the healthful effects of the large salad? Or does the salad neutralize the effects of the Twizzlers?

10 comments:

Anthony Nguyen said...

The twizzler overrides any positive effect the salad had on your body. The point of a salad is not that it's necessarily good for you, but that you're eating it instead of something that is bad for you. That's why a side salad with a steak dinner is only making things worse, especially if you drown it in ranch like myself.

In other words, don't be surprised to wake up dead. I hope this has consoled you.

Neil said...

So, Ace, what you're saying is that I should eat something positively nutritious with my Twizzlers, like broccoli or Guinness.

Anonymous said...

Don't be ridiculous, Neil. Clearly what's required is a more nutritionally balanced beer like Sam Adams Light or maybe a good IPA. Stir in some Metamucil and it'll be a wash for sure.

InTheOubliette said...

Let's be honest... those Twizzlers were going to be eaten no matter what (possible with the Sam Adams, or perhaps an Edmund Fitzgerald!). The salad was just a little bonus - no harm done. Unless veering from your fried-carboard-fishbrick diet was too severe a shock for your body to cope with and you're thrown into a coma. Then you're in trouble.

Unknown said...

Salas is roughage. To say it hurts you to eat it with a steak or processed sugar food item or a lager is tantamount to blasphemy. How dare you people scare poor Neil into not consuming at least 1500 calories along WITH the salad.

In all seriousness, your stomach has to work harder to digest green stuff (green as in leafy, not St. Patty's day beer.) Think of it as Ajax on your system. Eat what you want, then let the hard cells of the plant world do their job in washing away the delicious impurities.

Neil said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Neil said...

I don't know, Richard. I have always looked upon Guinness as a magical elixir containing all the ingredients necessary to sustain life. In fact, I heard that some of the more cutting -edge hospitals are administering it to their patients in IV form.

Neil said...

Actuall, Monica, I am feeling a little woozy this week because my Van de Kamp's fish rectangles ran out. Now I have nothing to eat but vegetables (yuk!).

Neil said...

Mr Austin, I think that what you are saying is that the salad neutralizes the Twizzlers. That is the kind of encouragement I need. I wonder, though, whether it was enough salad to counterbalance the effects of the milkshake I had earlier that day? (I also wonder how I can still be alive).

Kiska said...

Hi there,

I'm an educational designer for Sydney University.

Just to let you know, I have used your photo (salad) (and referenced it to you and your blog) as part of the NUTR4001_NTDT5309 Nutrition
Case Studies site for Sydney University, Australia.

If there is a problem with this, please let me knwo and I
will remove it.
It will only be seen by students and staff of this course.

Many thanks
Marina