Everyday Systems

I had 14 people over last evening for Holiday dinner. I bought a premade dinner from the local grocer and then built around it.

A relative I married into (can't choose???) wouldn't let her spawn have any gravy because I used butter in the rue, and then used the prime rib drippings. (It was tasty...) Her explanation is...butter is bad.

Thirty minutes later she sevred him at least 4 cups of ice cream with sprinkles. (I am not exaggerating on the amount.)

I don't know how to even work the thought process around this one?

Over43 wrote: A relative I married into (can't choose???) wouldn't let her spawn have any gravy because I used butter in the rue....

I gotta say....I just love how you word things...

Not a whole lotta logic there is there. Maybe she's delusional in thinking that ice cream doesn't count. I lived in that world for some time myself.

Too funny!!

Here's my advice: it doesn't make any sense so don't think about it.

wosnes wrote:Here's my advice: it doesn't make any sense so don't think about it.

Thank you. I have actually let it go. But, unfortunately for all of you, I had to say something to someone.

Couple of kinds of delusional thinking going on here.

First is the idea that some foods are "bad" and should be completely taboo. Now, this makes some sense- you probably shouldn't eat any amount of things like rat poison. But then some people try to apply it to foods that people have eaten for centuries without an obesity problem.

The other idea is that what you eat is more important than how much you eat. You see, as long as you avoid the "bad" foods, whatever they are at the moment, you can eat as much as you want.

If butter really were responsible for the obesity epidemic, we'd expect to see a drop-off in obesity rates in the US around the mid-twentieth-century, when people switched to margarine. We'd also see higher obesity rates in France than in the US. That's not what we see.

Um, the ice cream is made from the same stuff as butter - CREAM! It's just in a different form. Some people are just ignorant; they truly don't know any better.

Glad you've let it go...

Nicest of the Damned wrote:Couple of kinds of delusional thinking going on here.

First is the idea that some foods are "bad" and should be completely taboo. Now, this makes some sense- you probably shouldn't eat any amount of things like rat poison.

No, but you can take them as medicine!

Back in the day, I priggishly did not add the teaspoon of salt or whatever it was to the blondie recipe I made. Never mind the stick of butter or cup of brown sugar. Salt was BAD.

What I was trying to do was to do damage control. If I couldn't make the blondies good for me, then at least I could make them less bad.

Today, I add the salt. I also save the blondies with butter, sugar AND M&Ms! for special occasions.

Oh the knots we twist ourselves into...

Although really the best policy is to just let people have their prejudices, since we all definitely have our own, what may have been going on down deep is the idea that you make exceptions when the stakes are high enough. For example, many here have learned that they would have a moderate serving of a really good dessert but not 8 ounces of garden variety milk chocolate on an S day, even though it's allowed. Or alternately, I might have a lighter meal on an S day, but a rich dessert, because I can eat only so much food and still feel good. So she may have been projecting that an entree with "bad' ingredients is not worth the use of appetite, but even bad ice cream is, because HER attachment to sweets is greater than her attachment to gravy. I'm just guessing. Some will sacrifice for savory--the potato chip crowd-- and some for sweet. And many will foist it on their children, which is a tricky area. I don't have children, but I think I would opt for trying to guide them in trying to avoid being too full. but it's over now.

oolala53 wrote:Although really the best policy is to just let people have their prejudices, since we all definitely have our own, what may have been going on down deep is the idea that you make exceptions when the stakes are high enough. For example, many here have learned that they would have a moderate serving of a really good dessert but not 8 ounces of garden variety milk chocolate on an S day, even though it's allowed. Or alternately, I might have a lighter meal on an S day, but a rich dessert, because I can eat only so much food and still feel good. So she may have been projecting that an entree with "bad' ingredients is not worth the use of appetite, but even bad ice cream is, because HER attachment to sweets is greater than her attachment to gravy. I'm just guessing. Some will sacrifice for savory--the potato chip crowd-- and some for sweet. And many will foist it on their children, which is a tricky area. I don't have children, but I think I would opt for trying to guide them in trying to avoid being too full. but it's over now.

It amuses me because until rather recently, last 40 years or so, the question or observation wouldn't have been about whether ice cream is good and gravy bad, but the best way to make either one of them! I think that is more valid than whether one is good and the other bad.