what's that smell?!

Last night, I was doing my usual post-work rushing around-- walk the dog, make dinner for the man and I, and pick up a friend to go to our 7:30 ballet class. As I was running out the door, I realized that my sweatshirt reeked of the tasty steak I made for dinner. I am already pretty self-conscious in ballet class, but now I had to embarrassingly wonder what my teeny-tiny, limber teacher would think when she grabbed my not-so-petite arms and waist to try to twirl me across the floor... Would she notice the smell and be offended or even grossed out?

If I had only known about this yesterday, I would've been considerably less self-conscious about any lingering meat smells. For only $3.99, you too could smell like a (Burger King) flame-grilled hamburger. What could be sexier?!


(source)

Here's the tagling:

Most [celebrity] fragrances offer a ‘delicate’, ‘playful’ or ‘captivating’ overtone. But not Flame. The new fragrance from Burger King bucks the trend with that hint of flame-grilled beef. And reputedly it's also a surprising scent of seduction!

What do you think? Would you try it? I think if my man wore this, I would be disappointed...

Me: "Ooh, did you make dinner?"

Him: "No, it just smells like I did!"

what your portion should be.

(image source: www.hsph.harvard.edu)

so, i've been giving the "stop eating red meat to save your planet" thing a lot of thought. it is pretty tough to know that a meat-based diet is bad for the environment, but i'm trying to put it into perspective. upon further research, many experts recommend cutting your (red) meat portions down to 4 per week and restricting them to the size of a deck of cards. so, i'm pretty much rolling my eyes while writing this. how much meat does one really need? and isn't the deck-of-cards thing how we are supposed to determine meat portion sizes anyway? and do we really need to have red meat every day? switch it up! be creative! there are so many other options out there, i've decided these principles mostly would change the eating habits of the fast-food, white bread, meat-and-potatoes crowd.

harvard revised the usda food pyramid (as seen above) and you can see that it focuses on whole grains, good fats, fruits and vegetables, supplemented with lean proteins and red meat. just because i'm carnivorous doesn't mean i have to have a steak for every meal, but i think that doing so a couple times a week keeping in mind the deck-of-cards portion will do me a heck of a lot more good than harm (especially since my particular diet doesn't allow me proteins of the vegetarian variety.)

so, here are a few examples of meat portions from the typical American diet.

mcdonald's quarter pounder

stats:
serving size - 6 oz.
calories - 430
fat - 21 grams protein - 23 grams

outback special steak

stats:

serving size - 12 oz.

calories - 820
fat - 50 grams

protein - 90 grams

bk original whopper

stats:

serving size - 10.26 oz.

calories - 720

fat - 43 grams

protein 31 grams

in and out double double hamburger

stats:

serving size - 11.64 oz.

calories - 670

fat - 41 grams

protein - 37 grams

(all stats from www.chowbaby.com)

as you can see, all of these options are considerably over the recommended 3.1 ounces of meat (with only half of that being red) per day. in conclusion, i'm officially over feeling guilty for my meat consumption.

oh, and if you're checking my math on the sandwiches, i do know that the serving size includes the bun and toppings, but if you refer to the smallest portion - the mcdonald's quarter pounder, a quarter pound equals four ounces, going over the limit with one little meal.