Sometimes when Nicole has stuff to do I get to stay on campus all day. This isn't necessarily a bad thing because at my office or in the CS laptop lab I have an extra monitor to plug in to and I can get lots done with few interruptions. The only problem is that it sometimes gets a little hungry, because the only food I keep at my office these days is some oatmeal that I have for breakfast when I work in the mornings on Tues. and Thurs.
Enter the economics of choosing a cheap, filling lunch that can provide enough calories to last several hours and taste good enough that I want to eat it. If you believe everything you see on TV, a Snickers bar is the perfect answer, except for two problems. First, I can't stand nuts, or any food that contains them. Second, at $0.65 or so the cost/calorie ratio, while not too bad, is literally blown out of the water by the "real" lunch of coding champions: The Granny B's pink sugar cookie.
Your average candy bar has a calorie content of between 150 and 200, so we'll say the average is around 175. at $0.65, that's about 2.7 calories per cent. Now some of you will look at that wonderful pink sugar cookie's package and say, "That's only 113 calories." And that would be because you forgot to look at the serving size: 1/4 cookie. That's right, baby: 452 delicious calories in that marvel of baking ingenuity. At $0.75 in the bookstore, or $0.80 in the vending machines here on campus you have either 6 cents per calorie or 5.65 cents per calorie, respectively.
Add to that a bottle of delicious whole milk (a delicacy I don't get to enjoy much these days), and you have a 602 calorie lunch (enough fuel for about 6-7 hours of programming before I start to get hungry again) for a grand total of $1.50.
I know some of you (Nicole?) are rolling your eyes right about now, but if you can find me a better tasting, healthy lunch that I can get anywhere on campus for $1.50, I'll eat that instead.
Friday, April 04, 2008
The Lunch of Champions
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10 comments:
452 calories? i can feel the vomit rising.
How many calories do you think that "value chicken sandwich" you like so much at Wendy's has?
BUT IT'S A SANDWICH, AL. NOT A COOKIE! THERE IS A SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE.
Sounds like a pretty poor substitute for nutrition to me, but then I don't have to eat it.
sometimes you just NEED a special treat!!
Enjoy!!
i feel that the logic of your arguments is lost on these non-geeks. i'm with you all the way!
ps (and you don't have to post this) what's with the type-writer font? does it have to do with the post, or just the settings on the machine you posted on?
I prefer fixed-width fonts (since that's what I spend most of my time looking at) and blogger finally has a good one.
Not that I don't love Granny B's and milk... but there is no way that you don't get hungry for hours. You need protein to stave off the hunger, not just calories. Didn't you mention getting sick? How about an apple or a side of beef?
Whole milk has a surprising amount of protein. Also, you mainly just need calories to burn for a short time (a few hours) if you have regular amounts of protein in your diet. I have very regular amounts of protein in my diet. :)
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