May 21, 2022

"In the first week after the new rules we literally had customers with calculators out. It was a real novelty. And for the first two to three weeks..."

"... people would opt for the lighter dishes. For instance, orders for our mother butter chicken dish fell but orders for our lower-calorie agra chicken dish rose. But after about three weeks everyone got fatigued with it and we are now back to normal. It hasn’t made any difference to sales at all."

Said restaurant owner Nisha Katona, quoted in a London Times article about the calorie counts that have been required in the U.K. since last month.

The article cites a study of American restaurants with calorie counts that "in the first month, diners opted for dishes with an average of 60 fewer calories but after a year, the average reduction had fallen to 23 calories." And, we're told, the main difference is that people are taking more time to figure out what to order.

And here's another article on fatness in the London Times today: "Ancients believed in survival of the fattest/For most of human history food was precious and plumpness was something to be proud of, but then fashions changed" by Ben Macintyre:

Thrifty genotypes among the hunter-gatherers, who could store fat efficiently, were favoured by evolution.... The traditional desirability of excess flesh was reflected in social habits, politics, literature and arts, from Rubens to Shakespeare to Dickens. Scrooge is thin, in contrast to Joe in The Pickwick Papers, “a wonderfully fat boy”.

“Let me have men about me that are fat,” Shakespeare’s Caesar declares, while the dangerous Cassius “has a lean and hungry look”. Falstaff, the most famous fat man in literature, is loveable and trustworthy because he is stout....

There were exceptions: the Spartans ostracised fat men; Socrates danced every morning to keep himself trim; Hippocrates correctly warned that “Corpulence is not only a disease itself, but the harbinger of others”...

So! Socrates danced every morning?

But what dance did he do? 

I consult the text ("Symposium" by Xenophon):

At this point the boy performed a dance, eliciting from Socrates the remark, “Did you notice that, handsome as the boy is, he appears even handsomer in the poses of the dance than when he is at rest?”

“It looks to me,” said Charmides, “as if you were puffing the dancing-master.”

“Assuredly,” replied Socrates; “and I remarked something else, too,—that no part of his body was idle during the dance, but neck, legs, and hands were all active together. And that is the way a person must dance who intends to increase the suppleness of his body. And for myself,” he continued, addressing the Syracusan, “I should be delighted to learn the figures from you.”

“What use will you make of them?” the other asked.

“I will dance, by Zeus.”

This raised a general laugh; but Socrates, with a perfectly grave expression on his face, said: “You are laughing at me, are you? Is it because I want to exercise to better my health? Or because I want to take more pleasure in my food and my sleep? Or is it because I am eager for such exercises as these, not like the long-distance runners, who develop their legs at the expense of their shoulders, nor like the prize-fighters, who develop their shoulders but become thin-legged, but rather with a view to giving my body a symmetrical development by exercising it in every part? Or are you laughing because I shall not need to hunt up a partner to exercise with, or to strip, old as I am, in a crowd, but shall find a moderate-sized room large enough for me (just as but now this room was large enough for the lad here to get up a sweat in), and because in winter I shall exercise under cover, and when it is very hot, in the shade? Or is this what provokes your laughter, that I have an unduly large paunch and wish to reduce it? Don't you know that just the other day Charmides here caught me dancing early in the morning?”

“Indeed I did,” said Charmides; “and at first I was dumbfounded and feared that you were going stark mad....”

31 comments:

Koot Katmandu said...

Counting calories is mostly pointless. It assumes all calories are equal. Try eating 2000 calories of candy for 6 months and then 2000 of beef. I assure you the results will not be the same. Today most of us are over feed and under nourished and that is why we are fat and sick. A better measure - the percentage of calories from sugar or processed grains.

Eat real whole food when you are hungry your body will tell when to stop. Shop from the perimeter of the grocery store - meat, dairy, produce. Beware of any thing in a box.

Iman said...

But what dance did he do?

Sometimes the “shy tuna”, but Socrates usually did a vigorous “Hippocrit”…

hawkeyedjb said...

Requiring calorie counts on restaurant dishes is pure economic waste. It requires money and the efforts of people who otherwise could be engaged in productive work, and produces nothing of value.

traditionalguy said...

Drinking and dancing are still allowed. So why not smoking cigarettes too?

Balfegor said...

Falstaff, the most famous fat man in literature, is loveable and trustworthy because he is stout

Wait, what? I mean, "loveable" I get, but I wouldn't have thought of Falstaff as particularly "trustworthy." He's more of a loveable rogue, I'd think -- a comical scoundrel.

Mary Beth said...

How many dishes was each person ordering that they needed calculators to figure out what to get? I'm not good at math, but even I could do a rounded-off estimate in my head. It's not like the listed calories aren't already estimates. No need for precision when adding them up.

I wouldn't let 60 calories stand in the way of me ordering my favorite dish. If I were that worried about a few extra calories, I would just leave a couple of bites uneaten on the plate.

Yancey Ward said...

Carbon footprint on the menus coming next.

Quaestor said...

"But what dance did he do?"

The Fearful Shuffle after the third beer.

FleetUSA said...

Thanks for the quote and artwork. Larger people are very popular in poorer countries too...they don't sweat the high-styles of our coastal elite.

Joe Smith said...

Socrates shuffled around with his right arm pointed up in the air with the fingers of his hand pressed together and facing away from him.

He called this style 'The Oath.'

Wilbur said...

Xenophon reported that Socrates regularly asserted "Nobody can do Shing-a-Ling like I do, nobody can do Skate like I do, nobody can do Boogaloo like I do, nobody can do Philly like I do."
Thus he was accused of impiety and corrupting the youth.

Michael K said...

The problem is that Carbohydrates are just as likely to produce fat and fats are less common in the modern diet. The guy who fed rabbits meat and showed they got high cholesterol did a lot of harm.

mikee said...

Dancing? Belushi was a dancer, wasn't he?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64LJXqyZCek

Tim said...

We get back into correlation vs. causation in those kinds of studies. Did the popularity of the lower calorie dishes fall over time as people realized that they just didn't taste as good? Do a double blind, where people are asked to rate the flavor of the different dishes in one test, and then another test where you put the calories on and watch the consumption rates. Then try yet a third iteration, where portions are reduced on the original recipes as an alternative. Lots of unanswered questions....but no interest in finding answers.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

“Dude that’s quite the plea yay,” Mike said phonetically.

Ann Althouse said...

I like the Daumier print, but I don't believe Socrates would have danced in that one-shoulder contraption. He'd've been naked.

Howard said...

Calories actually do matter. Demand reduction is the key and a calorie budget helps. Weighing yourself every day let's you know if you have gone over or under.

John henry said...

I'm not good at math, but even I could do a rounded-off estimate in my head.

A lot of people can't. I was with someone the other day who did not believe that 3 boxes of 16 donuts totalled 48. (temporarily, 3-4 quickly disappeared) they had to use fingers to do the math. Didn't understand how I could count to 160 by 16s.

Estimating doesn't seem to be a skill taught in school. It was taught in the navy. Quick, what is 37 x 263? Any answer within +/- 10% is "correct enough". No paper/pencil allowed. Calculators are 5 years in the future.

You have to be good at estimating to use a slide rule. Especially when running a nuclear power plant.

John LGKTQ Henry

LA_Bob said...

Koot Katmandu said, "Counting calories is mostly pointless" Big, big upvote for you.

Yancey Ward said, "Carbon footprint on the menus coming next.". True dat, probably followed by a move to ban or "regulate" high-footprint meals.

Michael K said, "The guy who fed rabbits meat and showed they got high cholesterol did a lot of harm.". Not so sure. I think the people who ran with the idea did the harm. Bigly.

Rt41Rebel said...

I imagine these days most people are using calculators in restaurants to figure out if they can pay the check.

Dave said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mason G said...

"Quick, what is 37 x 263? Any answer within +/- 10% is "correct enough"."

40 x 250 = 10,000, this is probably a little high. Close enough?

YoungHegelian said...

The name "Plato" means "broad-shouldered" in Greek. The tradition in the Academy (I'm sure there was some ancient source, but I know not which) was that Plato was a wrestler as a young man.

This idea of dancing as a form of exercise was not uncommon among our ancestors. The diary of the colonial Virginia planter, William Byrd, mentions that he started his day with dancing for exercise if he was in good health.

Roger Sweeny said...

@Mason G - Yup, a little high. The exact answer is 9,731. Definitely within 10%.

Yancey Ward said...

Mason 2% over, and good job.

John henry said...

Good work, Mason. Certainly close enough.

Some may wonder why this is important. There are a lot of calculations needed to run a nuclear ships reactor. Back in the day, it was easy to make a mistake because they were all done manually, pencil and paper and slide rule. Melting down a reactor would be bad enough, but the worst part was that one would incur Hymen Rickover's wrath. It would not matter if you were glowing and dead. Some civilians thought Rickover sat at God's right hand. We, in his (on loan to the Navy) knew better. We knew that God sat at Rickover's right hand and as as scared shitless of him as any nuclear sailor.

So you always estimated the setting before calculating it. If, using the above example, you got 7,237 by the slide rule, while expecting something closer to 10m you would go back and recheck your calculations.

How many here have handed the kid at McD's $10 for a meal $6.50 and gotten $9 in change. The kid his a wrong key, the cash register says $9 change and the kid can't instantly see that it is wrong. Estimation comes in handy in a lot of other ways too in daily life.

It is a skill that should be taught in school in every math class from 1st grade on but I don't think ever is.

Estimating distances and dimensions is a handy skill that should be taught, too.

John LGKTQ Henry

realestateacct said...

This is another comment of the sort that keeps me coming back every day.

Gulistan said...

He did the floss-ophy (rimshot)

Narayanan said...

also kids don't know about clocks with hour and minute and second hands to tell time either

jim said...

1 Nimis pingui homini et corpulento censores equum adimere solitos scilicet minus idoneum ratos esse cum tanti corporis pondere ad faciendum equitis munus.
2 Non enim poena id fuit, ut quidam existimant, sed munus sine ignominia remittebatur.
3 Tamen Cato in oratione, quam de sacrificio commisso scripsit, obicit hanc rem criminosius, uti magis videri possit cum ignominia fuisse.
4 Quod si ita accipias, id profecto existimandum est non omnino inculpatum neque indesidem visum esse, cuius corpus in tam inmodicum modum luxuriasset exuberassetque.

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