We attended the first of a series of Puccini lectures at the Met this
morning - this was about La Boheme, and the speaker was Fred Plotkin.
He reported, among other things, on having read the original libretto,
which included a fifth act, or rather a new third act, in which they
all go back to Musetta's place from Mumus, and the character of the
Viscount (who stokes Rodolfo's jealousy) is introduced.

He played highlights from a performance from 1977 (I think) with
Pavarotti and Scotto, and pointed out how excellent the acting was
from both of them.  And it was.

Enjoyed the walk back to 57 th street and seventh after lunch -
Halloween, and the day before the Marathon - the West Side was really
hoppin' this afternoon.

My home has been besieged by throngs of trick-or-treaters.  I have
given out enough sugar to sweeten even Hillary Clinton. This may be
the last year I can do this; if Obama is planning to tax soft drinks,
won't Snickers be next?  The idea of fighting obesity through a tax on
sweetened drinks is so confoundedly stupid from a scientific point of
view, that I optimistically thought that Obama would reject it. For
those who do not bother to read the labels, I will point out that 12
ounces of delicious, refreshing, U.S. made Coca Cola has FEWER
calories than 12 ounces of orange juice, whole milk, or even 2 %
milk.  Coca Cola has just over HALF as many calories as grape juice.
A can of Coke has the same number of calories as two Oreo cookies.
And please do not tell me that Coca Cola contains "empty calories."
Empty calories, in fact, do not make one any fatter than "nutritious"
calories.  There is also no evidence whatever that childhood obesity
is related to soft drink consumption.

Sorry about rant. Have a Coke.

Paul

those who do not bother to read the labels, I will point out that 12
ounces of delicious, refreshing, U.S. made Coca Cola has FEWER
calories than 12 ounces of orange juice, whole milk, or even 2 %
milk.  Coca Cola has just over HALF as many calories as grape juice.
A can of Coke has the same number of calories as two Oreo cookies.
And please do not tell me that Coca Cola contains "empty calories."
Empty calories, in fact, do not make one any fatter than "nutritious"
calories.  There is also no evidence whatever that childhood obesity
is related to soft drink consumption.

Sorry about rant. Have a Coke.

Paul
===========If I was a Chief Executive Officer at Coca-Cola, Paul, I'd be sending

 For> those who do not bother to read the labels, I will point out that 12
ounces of delicious, refreshing, U.S. made Coca Cola has FEWER
calories than 12 ounces of orange juice, whole milk, or even 2 %
milk.  Coca Cola has just over HALF as many calories as grape juice.
A can of Coke has the same number of calories as two Oreo cookies.
And please do not tell me that Coca Cola contains "empty calories."
Empty calories, in fact, do not make one any fatter than "nutritious"
calories.  There is also no evidence whatever that childhood obesity
is related to soft drink consumption.

Sorry about rant. Have a Coke.

Paul

===========> If I was a Chief Executive Officer at Coca-Cola, Paul, I'd be sending
you a very large cheque!
That wasn't a rant...that was an advertisement! :-)

The best bit of advice I ever got about maintaining a healthy diet was
from  someone who worked at a Health Centre as a nutritionist and
said : Don't worry about calorie counting...it's natural that if you
consume more than usual mone day, you may consume less the next.
Weight changes constantly, anyway...it's all about thinking creatively
about healhy eating...if you concentrate solely on calories, your diet
will fail.  Calorie counting means you are depriving yourself at a
time when you need the most self-esteem.
Also...NEVER start a diet on January 1...more often than not you start
a diet for the WRONG reasons and you are putting too much pressure on
yourself. Better to wait until the weather starts to warm up.

clem wrote:
For
those who do not bother to read the labels, I will point out that 12
ounces of delicious, refreshing, U.S. made Coca Cola has FEWER
calories than 12 ounces of orange juice, whole milk, or even 2 %
milk.  Coca Cola has just over HALF as many calories as grape juice.

And absolutely NO real food value!  I've never been very fond of
carbonated drinks, but when I received the e-mail that's circulating
which details some of the non-beverage uses of Coca Cola I decided to
forgo it entirely!  (Apparently it is useful for removing corrosion from
car batteries, many police cars carry a couple of gallons of the stuff
to remove blood from the pavement at scenes of auto accidents, and it's
strong enough to dissolve protein immersed in it for a day or two.)

On Nov 1, 5:07 pm, "EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)"

evgm... at (no spam) earthlink.net> wrote:
clem wrote:
For
those who do not bother to read the labels, I will point out that 12
ounces of delicious, refreshing, U.S. made Coca Cola has FEWER
calories than 12 ounces of orange juice, whole milk, or even 2 %
milk.  Coca Cola has just over HALF as many calories as grape juice..

And absolutely NO real food value!  I've never been very fond of
carbonated drinks, but when I received the e-mail that's circulating
which details some of the non-beverage uses of Coca Cola I decided to
forgo it entirely!  (Apparently it is useful for removing corrosion from
car batteries, many police cars carry a couple of gallons of the stuff
to remove blood from the pavement at scenes of auto accidents, and it's
strong enough to dissolve protein immersed in it for a day or two.)

Interesting that no one responded to the on-topic portion of my post!
In any case, calories themselves are real food value, but I know that
you mean that it has no vitamins or other non-carb nutrients.   Coca
Cola is very acidic, and so can be used in each of the ways you
mention.  However, lime juice and pineapple juice are very acidic as
well, and can be used the same way.

I was not arguing that Coca Cola, my favorite drink,  (especially with
Chinese food!) is a health food!  Just that sweetened drinks are not
responsible for the increase in obesity and diabetes that seems to
concern the government.  And that the government ought not to increase
regressive taxes, and should keep its greedy fingers out of my fridge.

Paul

P.S.  Just checked a bottle of Newcastle brown ale, and noticed that
it had no nutritional information at all.  Neither do any of the other
alcoholic beverages I checked.  Seems strange to me that my iced tea,
lemonade, grape juice, milk, and Hostess creme-filled cupcakes have
nutritional information, but my wines, beers, and whiskey do not!
( By the way, a single yummy chocolate creme-filled Hostess cupcake
has more calories than a can of Coke, but less than the same amount of
grape juice.  It DOES, however, supply 10 %  of the recommended daily
requirement of calcium, and 6 % of the iron, so it is healthy enough
for me!)

And did you know about the extra act that was written for Puccini's
Boheme?

Paul

My home has been besieged by throngs of trick-or-treaters.  I have
given out enough sugar to sweeten even Hillary Clinton. This may be
the last year I can do this; if Obama is planning to tax soft drinks,
won't Snickers be next?  The idea of fighting obesity through a tax on
sweetened drinks is so confoundedly stupid from a scientific point of
view, that I optimistically thought that Obama would reject it. For
those who do not bother to read the labels, I will point out that 12
ounces of delicious, refreshing, U.S. made Coca Cola has FEWER
calories than 12 ounces of orange juice, whole milk, or even 2 %
milk.  Coca Cola has just over HALF as many calories as grape juice.
A can of Coke has the same number of calories as two Oreo cookies.

And please do not tell me that Coca Cola contains "empty calories."
Empty calories, in fact, do not make one any fatter than "nutritious"
calories.

is related to soft drink consumption.

On Oct 31, 1:43 pm, clem <labin... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:



My home has been besieged by throngs of trick-or-treaters.  I have
given out enough sugar to sweeten even Hillary Clinton. This may be
the last year I can do this; if Obama is planning to tax soft drinks,
won't Snickers be next?  The idea of fighting obesity through a tax on
sweetened drinks is so confoundedly stupid from a scientific point of
view, that I optimistically thought that Obama would reject it. For
those who do not bother to read the labels, I will point out that 12
ounces of delicious, refreshing, U.S. made Coca Cola has FEWER
calories than 12 ounces of orange juice, whole milk, or even 2 %
milk.  Coca Cola has just over HALF as many calories as grape juice.
A can of Coke has the same number of calories as two Oreo cookies.

I think it's a bit misleading to say that coke has half as many
calories as grape juice without considering serving size.  Grape juice
has about 150 calories per 8 ozs and coke has about 150 calories per
12 oz.  But even 8 oz of grape juice at one time seems like a lot to
me, because of the sweetness factor.  Similarly with 2% milk, which
has 137 calories per 8 oz.  I never cared much for Coke, but I used to
drink several Pepsi-Colas (a far superior product ) a day -- until
a doctor told me to switch to diet soda because of the weight/
potential diabetes implications.   For some reason I do like Diet Coke
better than Diet Pepsi, and making the switch to diet soda really did
help me lose about 20 lbs.

And please do not tell me that Coca Cola contains "empty calories."
Empty calories, in fact, do not make one any fatter than "nutritious"
calories.

No, but "nutritious" calories - like those vegetables you disdain  :
- )   -- tend to satisfy one's appetite,while soda and beer generally
do not (at least for most people).  Someone who drinks two or three
sodas and two or three alcoholic  beverages per day, is essentially
adding a fourth meal's worth of calories to his daily intake.

 There is also no evidence whatever that childhood obesity

is related to soft drink consumption.

When I was a youngster, we never kept soda ('pop' we called it in the
midwest) in the house unless we were expecting people over.  Sodas
were a treat we got once or twice a week during the summer when our
Little League team emerged victorious.  Nowadays, I suspect that a lot
of households keep soda on hand a fair amount of the time -- and kids
have access to it through vending machines at school -- and, in middle-
to-upper class neighborhoods, I think a fair amount of teens have
enough spending money to frequent fast food places, movie theaters and
the like, where drinking soda is routine.

Soda is certainly not the sole, and perhaps not even the primary
contributor to childhood obesity, but to say that there is "no
evidence"  that the two are related is a stretch, I  think.  The
National Soft Drink Association prides itself on the fact that the
average annual consumption of soft drinks in the US is now 600 12-oz
servings per person per year.  Since the late 1970's soft drink
consumption has doubled for females and tripled for males. **      I
think that to deny that there is ANY correlation between those
statistics and childhood obesity (a phrase which was almost never
heard in the 1970's) defies logic.

**http://www.everyday-wisdom.com/soft-drink-consumption.html

As for the tax consequences, the impact on someone who occasionally
drinks a soda would be negligible, but it would probably have some
impact on some households where keeping a twelve-pack in the fridge
24/7/365 is routine.

I'm sure I speak for millions of Americans when I congratulate you on
your metabolism, by the way.  But I suppose it wouldn't have been fair
for me to have both Apollonian good looks, AND a high-powered
metabolism.

Best,

Pat

For
those who do not bother to read the labels, I will point out that 12
ounces of delicious, refreshing, U.S. made Coca Cola has FEWER
calories than 12 ounces of orange juice, whole milk, or even 2 %
milk. Coca Cola has just over HALF as many calories as grape juice.

On Oct 31, 1:43 pm, clem <labin... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:



My home has been besieged by throngs of trick-or-treaters.  I have
given out enough sugar to sweeten even Hillary Clinton. This may be
the last year I can do this; if Obama is planning to tax soft drinks,
won't Snickers be next?  The idea of fighting obesity through a tax on
sweetened drinks is so confoundedly stupid from a scientific point of
view, that I optimistically thought that Obama would reject it. For
those who do not bother to read the labels, I will point out that 12
ounces of delicious, refreshing, U.S. made Coca Cola has FEWER
calories than 12 ounces of orange juice, whole milk, or even 2 %
milk.  Coca Cola has just over HALF as many calories as grape juice.
A can of Coke has the same number of calories as two Oreo cookies.

I think it's a bit misleading to say that coke has half as many
calories as grape juice without considering serving size.  Grape juice
has about 150 calories per 8 ozs and coke has about 150 calories per
12 oz.  But even 8 oz of grape juice at one time seems like a lot to
me, because of the sweetness factor.  Similarly with 2% milk, which
has 137 calories per 8 oz.  I never cared much for Coke, but I used to
drink several Pepsi-Colas (a far superior product ) a day -- until
a doctor told me to switch to diet soda because of the weight/
potential diabetes implications.   For some reason I do like Diet Coke
better than Diet Pepsi, and making the switch to diet soda really did
help me lose about 20 lbs.

And please do not tell me that Coca Cola contains "empty calories."
Empty calories, in fact, do not make one any fatter than "nutritious"
calories.

No, but "nutritious" calories - like those vegetables you disdain  :
- )   -- tend to satisfy one's appetite,while soda and beer generally
do not (at least for most people).  Someone who drinks two or three
sodas and two or three alcoholic  beverages per day, is essentially
adding a fourth meal's worth of calories to his daily intake.

 There is also no evidence whatever that childhood obesity

is related to soft drink consumption.

When I was a youngster, we never kept soda ('pop' we called it in the
midwest) in the house unless we were expecting people over.  Sodas
were a treat we got once or twice a week during the summer when our
Little League team emerged victorious.  Nowadays, I suspect that a lot
of households keep soda on hand a fair amount of the time -- and kids
have access to it through vending machines at school -- and, in middle-
to-upper class neighborhoods, I think a fair amount of teens have
enough spending money to frequent fast food places, movie theaters and
the like, where drinking soda is routine.

Soda is certainly not the sole, and perhaps not even the primary
contributor to childhood obesity, but to say that there is "no
evidence"  that the two are related is a stretch, I  think.  The
National Soft Drink Association prides itself on the fact that the
average annual consumption of soft drinks in the US is now 600 12-oz
servings per person per year.  Since the late 1970's soft drink
consumption has doubled for females and tripled for males. **      I
think that to deny that there is ANY correlation between those
statistics and childhood obesity (a phrase which was almost never
heard in the 1970's) defies logic.

**http://www.everyday-wisdom.com/soft-drink-consumption.html

As for the tax consequences, the impact on someone who occasionally
drinks a soda would be negligible, but it would probably have some
impact on some households where keeping a twelve-pack in the fridge
24/7/365 is routine.

I'm sure I speak for millions of Americans when I congratulate you on
your metabolism, by the way.  But I suppose it wouldn't have been fair
for me to have both Apollonian good looks, AND a high-powered
metabolism.

Best,

Pat