EXCESS! Anyone Else Have Enough Already?

[Panaderia Canadiense]

I'm going to go with Supersized everything. I don't need enough food to feed a small army when what I'm after is a snack.

[Darienne]

Deep-fried everything. Although I do succumb once a year to a Navajo Fry Bread in New Mexico... :wub:

[Hassouni]

I like a few smoked foods but not all. I often "cheat" and add strongly brewed Lapsang Souchong to give a slightly smoky flavor to certain foods that are ENHANCED by the smoky flavor.

OK, that is a brilliant idea!

[CKatCook]

Huge portions. Example: there's a bagel place near me that, when asked for a schmear of cream cheese, piles, literally, about 1/4-inch of cream cheese on the bagel, more than enough for two bagels and some to take home. Pizza with so much cheese on it that it runs off the slice to the point that I can take the excess home and make a cheese sandwich with it. Salads so over dressed that I now only order dressing on the side.

Food that's not hot: soup that's luke warm to the point I send it back to be heated.

Hamburgers piled so high with garnish (lettuce, tomato, pickles, avocado, bacon, and what not) that one cannot easily take a bite out of the sandwich and the thing has to be held together with a huge toothpick. Remove the toothpick and the stack can't even support itself. Leave the toothpick in, and it impales you.

.... Shel

Amen on this! I am so tired of going into eat any where and I really cannot order anything because everything comes out so huge it means I will be stuck with a couple of days of leftovers!

That and the low carb folks...thank god that is a fad that is dying out. For a while I could not eat a sandwich without getting the sink eye from someone.

[GlorifiedRice]

That and the low carb folks...thank god that is a fad that is dying out. For a while I could not eat a sandwich without getting the sink eye from someone.

Actually Atkins has begun a full scale comeback. new frozen food line, celebrity followers etc

[Tri2Cook]

The following things are starting to bother me...

Pickled Raisins.

Just out of curiosity, what's the excess involved with pickled raisins? I didn't know you could buy pickled raisins but I've made them in the past and thought they were tasty. They seemed like a natural pickling candidate, overly sweet and mostly dehydrated. They suck up the pickling liquid, soften and the sweetness is balanced by the vinegar. Personally, I find it a vast improvement over a stock raisin. Not bashing your opinion, I'm just trying to understand the criteria for "excess" in that case.

Okay everyone - lighten up...

http://youtu.be/yYey8ntlK_E

Can't lighten up because I'm not wound up. I thought I made that clear in my post, guess not. I have no personal attachment to pickled raisins other than I happen to like them. I was just trying to understand, from your point of view, what about them constituted an excess. I think this entire conversation would make more sense if people explained why they feel this way about the thing they list. But I'm not in the least bit wound up or upset or anything like that, just curious.

[djyee100]

You think a see-through toaster is over the top? How about this--

http://www.geekologie.com/2012/09/toaster-burns-the-days-weather-forecast.php

Wait, wait, there's more. Of course. There is always more.

http://www.oddee.com/item_96833.aspx

All this is too much for me.

However, I would like a toaster that is also Zen.

[andiesenji]

I'm going to go with Supersized everything. I don't need enough food to feed a small army when what I'm after is a snack.

I agree. A local restaurant serves 3-egg omelets and I always have to spend time convincing the server that two eggs is more than enough and I am willing to pay the same price... I hate to see wasted food and I simply can't consume that much.

I am reminded of Canter's Deli on Fairfax in L.A. They put enough meat on their sandwiches for THREE sandwiches. There is no way I can eat a sandwich with the pastrami piled 2 1/2 to 3 inches thick.

They were "supersizing" sandwiches decades before there were "fast-food" places.

[annabelle]

I've never understood the overstuffed sandwiches in kosher delis. I always have to remove at least half to two thirds of the meat to eat it and after spending time reconfiguring the sandwich, I'm usually not all that interested in eating it any longer.

I have several friends who are from the UK and they are always making a big deal out of the portion size in the US. I agree that the portions are much too large, but I have also seen them tuck into their meals and not leave a scrap while I have a hard time eating half of an entrée in most places.

[StanSherman]

I've tried to grasp the GMO honey bee issue for a while. The most recent reports point to neonicotinioids in corn and soy, but the farmers around here tell me they have stopped using them for a couple of years. They find other types of fungcide application more cost effective and environmentally friendly. We don't seem to have the problem here, but we don't have the super huge wide-open fields that some areas of the state have. The CRP and hunting lands add lots of habitat.

I'd add "farm fresh" to the anoying list.

[annabelle]

Soybeans and corn are grown in my state, although we are primarily range-fed cattle and horse country. Many people also have pecan orchards and berry farms as well as apiaries. Honey production isn't down and hasn't decreased in quality, either. There is a lot of truth mixed with more hyperbole about GMOs out there. Like gfweb, I am of two minds about it. I don't think it is nearly as terribly as its foes proclaim, nor do I think it harmless. I grew up around huge commercial corn and cotton crops in California that were crop dusted to kill the boll weevils and can remember having large fields of clover growing in our yard directly across the street. Clover that was swarming with honey bees.

"Sustainable" is my banned word and "Farm to table" my banned phrase.

Edited March 24, 2013 by annabelle (log)

[nickrey]

Free range, typically as applied to chickens. Yes they are not kept in slums as industrial chickens are but an advertisement here on television portrays them as gambolling merrily through the fields, playing with each other. We had chickens when I was growing up and their behaviour is nothing like this misty-eyed advertising conceptualisation of free range. It is more than enough to bring out the cynic in me and wonder how they are really kept (mobile chicken coop driven around a paddock is much more likely).

[andiesenji]

Loss of bee colonies IS affecting crops in California - Especially the ALMOND crops in the San Joaquin Valley. Two local beekeepers, who rent their hives to pollinate fruit orchards, have THIRTY % fewer bee colonies than they had five years ago and the hives are not multiplying because there are fewer viable queens to transfer to a new hive and fewer workers to go with her.

Honey production is a profitable sideline but their main income comes from pollinating crops.

California growers require at least one and a half MILLION bee colonies each pollinating season and right now there are less than 600,000 available for placement. Beekeepers are trying to import more viable hives from other states but several are in even worse shape than California (Texas and New Mexico - for the pecan orchards, for instance).

The problem began on a small, fairly isolated basis but after some big corporations began importing a "royal jelly dietary supplement" that is supposed to increase honey production, for bees from China, it spread more rapidly, beginning in 2008. The local bee guys have never used it but DNA testing has shown changes that means their bees have been exposed to it.

I used to see huge numbers of bees when I went out to view the desert wildflowers in this area but last year there were not nearly as many as I saw in the past. My rosemary bushes also do not seem to be attracting as many honeybees - most of the ones now working the flowers are "orchard bees" or "mason bees" ...

[StanSherman]

Free range, typically as applied to chickens. Yes they are not kept in slums as industrial chickens are but an advertisement here on television portrays them as gambolling merrily through the fields, playing with each other. We had chickens when I was growing up and their behaviour is nothing like this misty-eyed advertising conceptualisation of free range. It is more than enough to bring out the cynic in me and wonder how they are really kept (mobile chicken coop driven around a paddock is much more likely).

Free range is typically used with meat birds. In the US that is 99.99% some form of a Cornish Cross breed. They eat, drink and crap all within about 6 feet of their food. It doesn't matter how they are housed. "Free range" simply means they have access to the outdoors. That means there is a door that is open. Most chicken houses have 60,000 birds and a few may get lost and wander outside.

If you want chickens that are housed outdoors typically they are in mobile cages. The correct term for that system is pastured.

[annabelle]

Andie, that sounds more like a case of the bees themselves being crossed with a non-native bee. I remember the killer bees back in the 70s-80s. They were from Mexico, I believe.

Texas is in its third-fourth straight year of terrible draught and I believe that is affecting the growth of grasses and other shrubs as well as fruit and nut crops. We have had a similar problem here in Oklahoma, but not as severe.

Again, I am not minimizing the effects of GMO crops. It is an argument that is akin to the one about DDT which kills malaria carrying mosquitoes and could save the lives of many children in Africa and Asia, as well as in other parts of the world that hosts them (Texas, Florida and Alaska for a few) but is not used as a pesticide due to the propaganda campaign put forth by Rachel Carson in her book "Silent Spring." The science says otherwise, but Ms. Carson's hypothesis is received wisdom to many. In short, do the benefits outweigh the risks? I'm not an authority on the subject and would have to do more research. It's a great big country and what is happening here, isn't of course exactly what is happening there.

We are seeing cases of West Nile Virus in Florida and some of the Gulf States. This hasn't happened before. Sadly, it will take unnecessary deaths before we take any action regarding spraying the mosquitoes.

Edited March 25, 2013 by annabelle (log)

[jmolinari]

Bacon, and pork belly.

I love both, but enough already.

[andiesenji]

The "killer bees" were from Africa, thus the name "Africanized honeybees" that were imported to South America for greater honey production.

The DNA studies can tell the difference between bee species and can tell when bee DNA systems have been altered by the introduction of chemicals contained in specific foods (royal jelly).

This is NOT the same as the problems beekeepers have with unrestricted use of insecticides and fungicides on crops that are not supposed to be sprayed or otherwise treated.

A lawsuit has been brought against the EPA and one is in the works against the USDA.

If there is a massive die-off of honeybees (and these insecticides are killing other pollinating insects) the U.S. economy will be devastated - California will be a DISASTER as will Washington, Oregon, in the west and the south will be in even worse shape than it is now, not to mention the "apple, cherry and berry states."

I own property in New Mexico that is leased to a pecan grower - it will be worthless without bees, although he has established some Mason bees in the orchards, they are not as active as honeybees and are solitary, not hive dwellers.

I have attended two town hall meetings and heard a republican representative makes the most IDIOTIC comment I have ever heard when questioned about this burgeoning problem: "People can live without honey..." This is a person who doesn't understand the first think about agriculture but sits on the Ag committee in Congress.

Edited March 25, 2013 by andiesenji (log)

[GlorifiedRice]

Andiesenji?

Take a quick look at this

http://www.xerces.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/xerces-organic-approved-pesticides-factsheet.pdf

What do you think of that?

[ruthcooks]

Enough with the shortages and back to the excessed--

Runny eggs all over entrees and sandwiches and salads. Yellow slime!

[annabelle]

I can't stand runny eggs.

GlorifiedRice, that is an interesting article. Thank you for sharing it.

Andie, while that is a truly ignorant statement for the politician to make, I doubt that stupidity is cloistered only on the right side of the aisle. Barbara Boxer, anyone?

[andiesenji]

Andiesenji?

Take a quick look at this

http://www.xerces.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/xerces-organic-approved-pesticides-factsheet.pdf

What do you think of that?

I'm aware of all these and so are beekeepers but the big problems are from the "engineered" plants such as the GMO alfalfa (which Monsanto began planting in widespread locations a year before it was approved) and which kills bees when they feed on the blossoms and pollen from the plants has killed other plants, such as milkweed on which monarch butterflies feed.

I just want to KNOW what is in my food. And I like to know if a farm is using "sustainable" farming methods. I support organic farmers, local, when possible.

[Broken English]

Steak in general.

I find that these days anything more than about 4/5oz and I just get so bored of chewing. Plus, the last bits are usually getting cold and the fat is starting to congeal and leave a nasty residue on my palate.

[StanSherman]

The bee problem in Central California dates several years before 2008. I've know beekeepers and nut growers who were worried years ahead of that. As far as I know GMO alfalfa's "advantage" is that it is "Round-up Ready". After emergence Glyphosate will not kill the plant but will eliminate broad leaf weeds. There is no incecticide.

I'm not pushing GMO seed or Organic. It's informative to get widespread input. On of the biggest problems I see is the lack of knowledge of the general public. They are pushed by advertising/marketing schemes IMHO are less than ethical.

"I just want to KNOW what is in my food. And I like to know if a farm is using "sustainable" farming methods. I support organic farmers, local, when possible."

We can more of our own stuff than the local Amish. I know whats in it. How do you determine what is "sustainable"? I'm surrounded with 5th and 6th generation farmers and they will universally agree that for true sustainability they need to keep their financial ass afloat.

[OliverB]

speaking of excess, all these chains like Cheesecake Factory, Elephant Bar, Claim Jumper, etc. Places where you end up carrying out a doggie carton, not bag. Why not simply make better food? I hate doggie bags, I don't want to bring half my dinner home.....

Some sandwiches look like an order of cold cuts for 20 packed between to pieces of bread. Just plain out stupid.

[annabelle]

One of the chain pasta/Italian-ish restaurants is featuring a promotion where the patron may order a second helping of their pasta main for nothing, I don't know about all of you, but pasta is pretty darned filling and starchy. I can't imagine eating two whole entrees.

I bet they get a lot of requests for take-away boxes.