g.johnson

Do you mean gene therapy? Who's talking about gene therapy? (No one has got it to work yet anyway.) If you understand the mechanisms you can intervene at any level. You can take hormones (or other signaling proteins) or drugs that block hormones. You can use drugs that up- or down-regulate the production of hormones. You can take drugs that block uptake of hormones. You can take drugs that block carbohydrate receptors in the pancreas. There are potentially many ways in which you could reduce feelings of hunger or increase satiety. There is no a priori reason to suppose that such drugs would be any more likely to produce unforeseen side effects than beta blockers or the histamine antagonists you take for heartburn and allergies.

LOL, and also the safety and efficacy of the science of tampering with one part of the human body, then waiting 20 years or so to see if it might just have an adverse effect on another You're proposing 20 year clinical trials?

Uh oh. You sound like a thin person. Are you a thin person? Chronic overweight and eating when not hungry go together like, well, soup and sandwich, shall we say? Not being hungry has never stopped me from eating -- unless I put my mind to it and *decide* not to eat because I don't need it. But the mere absence of hunger is hardly a factor. Thin? Christ, no. I think we have a confusion of terms that is probably my fault. By “hungry” I mean only “wanting to eat”. (By “sated”, I mean “not wanting to eat”). You and cakewalk are distinguishing between the desire to eat that you feel after fasting and the desire that compels you, despite having a full belly, to stuff down that last wafer thin mint. I guess that you believe that the former is driven by biology and the latter by habit. I’m not so sure. It seems unlikely that bingeing can be learned behavior in any Pavlovian sense since it leads to discomfort and hence should discourage repetition. I suspect that what we are seeing is the result of conflicting biological mechanisms. One that is telling you that you have eaten sufficiently, and another (via the “thrifty gene”?) that is telling you to lay on more fat for the winter. With some people (including me), that second compulsion wins out. With skinny gits, it’s the first. When these mechanisms are understood, it may be possible to modify that balance. And then, as I said, I don’t think there will be any need for conscious calorie counting – it’ll all be done automatically.

This is what the mathematicians call trivially true. True but of little interest. The real question is why people eat more than they need. . Actually, I don't believe that is the real question for people who want to lose weight. The real question for them is "What can I reasonably do to lose weight?". Your question may be of interest to scientists, but until they can agree on the fundamental science (and they're a million miles away from it right now, as many of the posts in this thread make clear) then the biological cause of over-eating is simply esoteric. But mine is the real question for most people since the reason few stay on diets is because they're always hungry. If hunger can be suppressed then no conscious effort to reduce calory intake will be necessary. And contrary to what you say, science does appear close to elucidating how hunger and satiety are controlled. (The contentious questions concern the safety and efficacy of different diets, a very different question.)

This is what the mathematicians call trivially true. True but of little interest. The real question is why people eat more than they need. The body is perfectly good at maintaining other balances – temperature for example – why not weight? If I understand the arguments correctly, Atkins proponents claim that eating carbohydrates causes an increase in insulin levels which in turn causes an increase in hunger. So you tend to consume more calories than you need. On the other hand, eating protein and fat causes satiety at a lower calorific intakes, so you automatically eat the right amount.

If the problem is due to hard water, I’m not sure that using spring water is the answer since that too will contain minerals. Distilled or de-ionized water would be better and cheaper.

Smug scientific bastard.

Tycho (de) Brahe.

We once had a completely salt-free dinner at a college friend’s house. I can only remember the boiled potatoes. Absolutely disgusting. Said friend later appeared on numerous talk shows as a recovering pornography addict. But I’d known he was a wanker long before.

Does this produce tuna that is significantly better than the imported Italian stuff in jars?

We were at the 24th Street GSI on Sunday night and, as always, had the braised beef fillet with chili sauce. It makes an even bigger impression coming out than it does going in but I love it dearly. The great discovery of Sunday was a starter, though – cold ox tongue and tripe in chili oil. Again very spicey but with a wonderful flavor and texture.

That’s the least helpful simile I have ever read.

They are. It was the highlight of my recent trip to Europe.

No problems with them.

I have had uni once, in DiSpirito’s scallop dish. Several people at the table had the same thing and appeared to enjoy it, so I’m assuming it was OK. But I tasted an unpleasant metallic flavor. I sometimes taste the same thing in lobster. I find it hard to believe that anyone could learn to like this flavor so I assume that I’ve either been unlucky or I’m tasting something that others don’t.

Edited to remove sparkling repartee between Tommy and myself.

"Anaphylactic", no?

I know someone who vomits at the sight of custard. Literally. This is a real physical reaction but it is clearly nothing to do with custard intolerance or allergic reaction. No one disputes that the reactions described here are real, but the cause may not the physiological. I.e., you’re all bloody nutters.

The vindaloo had me reaching for the bread and I usually regard myself as iron-gulleted by US standards. Maybe I've gone soft too. The phaal was giving an Indian guy at the next table problems.

You've only been thirsty for six years. (First Johnsonian use of emoticon.)

Having done a quick google on all this, I find that it’s even more confused than I thought. A US dry pint is 550cc but a liquid pint is 473cc. You guys really need to turn metric in a hurry.

US and imperial fluid ounces are approximately the same but an American pint is 16 fluid ounces and an imperial pint is 20 fluid ounces. Because we can take our drink.

Anyone want to know the difference between imperial and US pints?

Strictly speaking, one should still qualify the volume measure as "fluid ounce", the volume of water that weighs one ounce.

Last night at The Brick Lane Curry House in NYC, I had a vindaloo which was excellent but didn’t contain potatoes. I asked the owner about this and he said that the inclusion of potatoes is inauthentic and due to a mistaken etymology, vind – aloo, the last part meaning potato. According to him the correct etymology is vin – daloo, the first part meaning vinegar and the second pork. Comments?