Archives for the 'Padma Lakshmi' tag
Vegetarianism Bad for Teens
A new study carried out by a Minnesota college professor of nutrition
…found that while adolescent and young adult vegetarians were less likely than meat eaters to be overweight and more likely to eat a relatively healthful diet, they were also more likely to binge eat. Although most teens in Robinson-O’Brien’s study claimed to embark on vegetarianism to be healthier or to save the environment and the world’s animals, the research suggests they may be more interested in losing weight than protecting cattle or swine.
For one thing, many young “vegetarians” continue to eat the white meat of defenseless chickens (25% in the current study), as well as the flesh of those adorable animals known as fish (46%), even when butchered and served up raw as sushi. And in a 2001 study in the Journal of Adolescent Health, researchers found that the most common reason teens gave for vegetarianism was to lose weight or keep from gaining it. Adolescent vegetarians are far more likely than other teens to diet or to use other extreme and unhealthy measures to control their weight, studies suggest. The reverse is also true: teens with eating disorders are more likely to practice vegetarianism than any other age group.
Whole thing at Time.com.
But parents shouldn’t freak too much. Like the PETA staffer who changed her name from Karin Robertson to GoVeg.com and then back to Karin Robertson, a teenage vegetarian–like surly teenagehood itself–is probably going through a passing fad. (Just ask Padma!)
This Week in Bacon
Following in Paris Hilton’s footsteps, Padma Lakshmi, host of Top Chef, now stars in her own Carl’s Jr. commercial. The commercial — a 24-second ad — promotes the Western Bacon Cheeseburger. Watch as pieces of mayonnaise and bacon bits strategically fall on random parts of her body, so that she can entice the viewers by subsequently licking them away, or as she puts it, getting rid of the “evidence.” NY Daily News reports that this commercial isn’t the only place Padma promotes the burger:
But the sultry star isn’t just indulging for the camera. In her own cookbook “Tangy, Tart, Hot and Sweet,” she credits the grab and go burger joint for awakening her from her vegetarian slumber as a teenager.
“The sublimely pleasurable taste of bacon … was further enhanced by its mingling with the barbeque sauce, greedily licked off as it dripped down my teenage fingers,” she wrote.
And I thought Padma and I had nothing in common . . . never underestimate the power of bacon to provide common ground between strangers.
