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Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Health Nut Jack

I'm not sure I've mentioned this, but Jack is a very health conscious eater. He is convinced he is semi-diabetic and will have his first heart attack at the age of 40, and these fears keep him chomping on spinach and whole grains and all that good stuff. Now, I'm vegan, and while you can certainly be a very unhealthy vegan (think Coke & french fries for every meal), I'm actually a healthier eater now than I was in my omnivore days. But while my main question prior to eating anything is "are there animal products in this?", Jack's first question is always "is this going to clog my arteries and send me into immediate cardiac arrest?" Or at least that's what I imagine his first question is.

Ok, where am I going with all this?

Butter. Yes, butter. So, Jack mentors this kid at a local junior high, and he went there for an assembly a couple weeks ago. The assembly was supposed to teach kids about dog sledding (not up my alley, but whatever) and how the mushers survive in impossibly cold temperatures. Because mushers need to consume a lot of calories to stay warm, they said they eat things like entire blocks of cheese or sticks of butter in one sitting. So, as a contest, they had 3 students compete to see who could eat a stick butter first. Three chubby kids volunteered and went to town.

Whenever Jack tells this story, you would think that the assembly was about "how to dismember a toddler in 3 minutes" or something. He was so horrified. He wanted to run up on stage and stop the kids from doing this. He waited & waited for a teacher to intervene. And no one did...and so a sweet little toddler was dismembered entire sticks of butter were consumed before his very eyes, bite by buttery bite.

He was outraged. "If my kid went to that school and ate a stick of butter, I'd be on the phone so fast!.....No, I'd drive down to the principal's office to complain! Maybe I'd start a protest or something. I mean, that was one of the most outrageous things I've ever seen in my whole life!"

Me? I was just annoyed it wasn't vegetable based margarine.

21 comments:

Rock Chef said...

That is great! Screw the jocks, let's have something that the fat kids are goods at!

Jen said...

Shame-sticks! They ate shame-sticks!




(well actually, shame-sticks are 1st rolled in sugar. . . .)

Anonymous said...

I'm kind of surprised that the school encouraged fat kids to get fatter in a society clogged (HA!) with child obesity. Teachers doing the encouraging, no less. I'm just going to file this under 'Minnesota: The state that elected Jesse 'The Body' Ventura governor' and be done with it.

Note to Jack: You can eat all the foliage you like, but a single little random point-mutation in your DNA caused by the wind blowing or God sneezing or a dog farting in a rain forest will give you cancer and there's nothing you can do about it. Our bodies are fickle with their love and secretly want to kill us.

Anonymous said...

Although it's nasty, perhaps a bit of an overreaction?

Did anyone puke? I would've. Fast.

Emily said...

ewww. i'm sorry but i'm with jack on this one. that commercial where the dad is about to eat a whole stick of butter and the family walks in and catches him?? makes me want to puke every time.

shazzam said...

U-S-A! U-S-A!

Anonymous said...

More leafy veggies have been found to be contaminated with e-coli and salmonella than actual meat. I've never heard of any bacterias being found in butter. Fattening yes, but eating a stick of butter (as disgusting as that is) will not kill you. Unless of course you're allergic to it, lol.

-ForeverAnon

Anonymous said...

I agree w/ Jack. That is absurd.

Anonymous said...

I was vegetarian most of my life till I caved in recently to bacon (I know, I am ashamed). I could live without it however. I couldn't live without cheese though, so veganism was out for me. :)

Talking of vegan, have you tried those Ives veggie "Cajun Chicken Slices"? YUM! Seriously. Yum.

The thought of eating a stick of butter just made me gag.

Rahul said...

I Can't Believe It's Not Butter.

Just wanted to say that.

inflammatory writ said...

I just quit smoking, so a stick of butter sounds delicious about now. That's very wrong. Think I'm gonna have another Dum Dum...

Al said...

Well it's nice to see that you're both principled people who have the capacity to be appalled.

AssertiveWit said...

whole sticks of butter? that makes me want to barf...I probably would have pulled a Jack move too and led a protest for endangering the youth LOL

KindredSmile said...

I'm with Jack on this one. The very thought of that is enough to make me gag...no one wants to imagine a fat kid all buttered up.

LWLH said...

Ewww that is disgusting..I love your explanation though.."bite by buttery bite"..lol

Sprite said...

I'm with Jack too. I would be outraged if my child had been dared into eating a stick of butter BY HIS/HER SCHOOL! Sorry for the American bashing, but this is exactly the kind of ridiculous stunt my American elementary and middle school school would have pulled, with its "don't worry kids, school is cool, we're not about education or anything!"

They could have at least turned the butter into puff pastry first. Now that I could handle. With choclate bits. Yummmmmmmmmmm.

Anonymous said...

I do recall drunkin fraternity boys in college saying a Budweiser has the same caloric value as a stick of butter.

Now if this is in fact true, (and who doesn't believe everything a drunk boy/man says to you.) I am appalled by my local watering whole offering nightly 2/1's on the The Bud. I will no longer drink 4. So there.

-erin

paperback reader said...

So, soon, you'll be having kids and complaining to the school board so often you'll eventually have to run for school board?

Luvvie said...

I'm with Jack on this one. I'm not any kinda healthy eater either but entire sticks of butter eaten by already chubby kids? If I was a parent, I'da raised all types of hell. EEEWWWWW

Jess said...

I am sooooo with Jack on this one (well, and with Jill in that I am irritated that it was dairy-based butter :P)... Honestly, do we need more obese kids in our society, or more activities that encourage them to be unhealthy?! Plus, the mushers actually NEED to eat all those calories to survive; does a middle schooler need an entire stick of butter to make it through the day? Uhhhh, obviously no. Eating isn't a sport.

That activity would have pissed me off, too, and that school is lucky my kid doesn't go there.

(For the record, I don't bitch about much & I know I sound like a hardcore complainer by this comment. But stuff like this really boils my blood!)

Jess said...

P.S. I just re-read my comment, and when I said, "That school is lucky my kid doesn't go there," I didn't mean that I have some secretive kid I haven't told you about.

So, more accurately, that school is lucky that my HYPOTHETICAL, non-existent kid doesn't go there.