Savvy Eating and Lifestyles, 2/26/20: Eat a Bigger Breakfast, McDonald’s Candles & Crystal Engagement Ring … and Moldy Burger King Whopper

Big Breakfast Better for Weight Loss was written by Jeff Minerd for MedPageToday.com, 20 February 20The body uses more than twice as much energy to digest breakfast than dinner, a finding that emphasizes the importance of breakfast for weight loss, scientists said.20. Really???? What about intermittent fasting? Well, here goes …

“Our data show that the time of day of food intake makes a difference in humans’ energy expenditure and metabolic responses to meals,” Juliane Richter, PhD, of the University of Lübeck in Germany, and co-authors reported wrote online in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. “These in-laboratory standardized experiments, which eliminated the possible influence of sleep disturbances and carbohydrate preloads, support the thesis that in terms of DIT (diet-induced thermogenesis), breakfast has a more efficient energetic value for our body than dinner.”

The body uses more than twice as much energy to digest breakfast than dinner, a finding that emphasizes the importance of breakfast for weight loss, scientists said. Furthermore, study participants who ate a low-calorie breakfast reported increased feelings of hunger and specifically cravings for sweets later in the day, compared with participants who ate a high-calorie breakfast.

Asked for her perspective, Lauri Wright, PhD, of the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, who was not involved with the study, said the research provides new information about the first meal of the day: “We have long known that eating breakfast is important for health. Benefits include a healthier weight, keeping blood sugar steady, better concentration at school and work, and even heart health. This new study, though, shows that our body is ‘rev-ed’ up in the morning and has a better metabolic response to breakfast than other times of the day,” she told MedPage Today.

The study lends no support to the concept of intermittent fasting, a popular dietary practice that has received much attention lately, Wright added. “The study results actually contradict intermittent fasting. Translating this study’s findings, the optimal pattern for health is a larger breakfast and a small dinner.”

McDonald’s candles smell like the future of marketing was written by Jeff Beer (ooh, a fun name for a food writer!) for FastCompany.com, 22 February 2020.

Sesame seed bun, ketchup, onions, beef, pickles, or cheese? These are the scents in a six-pack of candles available as part of a new Quarter Pounder Fan Club, each scented for a corresponding ingredient in the canonical McDonald’s burger. Of course, if you need to imagine what these candles smell like when lit all together, all you need to do is wander within two miles of any McD’s.

Announced by the fast feeder and created with agency Wieden+Kennedy New York, the new fan club merch, available at Golden Arches Unlimited, includes the candles, matching Quarter Pounder mittens for couples, a calendar, a Quarter Pounder with Love locket, a fan club T-shirt and pin, and an “I’d rather be eating a Quarter Pounder” bumper sticker. Honk if you also like McDonald’s a little too much!

The answer to the question of why McD’s would do this is not complicated. The company has been selling out of all the products that it’s been selling since it first launched its full-blown e-commerce store in December. Not only that, but McD’s says it will gift a giant, bronze Quarter Pounder monument to the city that professes its QP love the most enthusiastically by Wednesday, February 26. Truly an honor for generations of residents and tourists to behold.

WAIT, there’s more!

KFC teaming with Crocs for a special-edition, chicken bucket sandal (with chicken-leg-shaped Jibbitz that emitted a fried-chicken scent, of course). A day later, just before Valentine’s day, Pepsi unveiled the Crystal Pepsi Engagement Ring. For real. Crystal Pepsi was boiled down to its most basic carbon form, ground into a powder, then added to the process of making a 1.53-carat, lab-grown alternative diamond.

Oreo revealed that it was joining Louis Vuitton, Commes des Garcons, Nike, Champion, and many, many, many others in the illustrious (and arguably overcrowded) club of Supreme collaborators. It costs $8 for three of these cookies, a considerable markup considering a pack of 39 sells for around $3.50. eBay bidding is already up to more than $10,000.

Propose how you’d propose for a chance to do it with The Pepsi Engagement Ring – the only ring made with real Crystal Pepsi. Really.@Pepsi with #PepsiProposal #contest for a chance to win.
Rules: https://t.co/xRlxcIrYyI pic.twitter.com/OJ5LKyxrre

— Pepsi (@pepsi) February 13, 2020

Burger King celebrates no preservatives with this disgusting Moldy Whopper was disgustingly reported by Jeff Beer (again) for FastCompany.com, 19 February 2020.

Burger King has now announced that it’s removed artificial preservatives from the Whopper in more than 400 U.S. locations, an endeavor that will reach all American outlets by the end of this year. The brand is also declaring that more than 90% of all its food ingredients are free from artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives, and it’s removed MSG and high-fructose corn syrup from all food items. To mark the occasion, the company decided to adapt Spurlock’s experiment into its advertising with a new spot called “The Moldy Whopper.”

Of course, some may balk at utilizing fuzzy green mold to sell food, but here that fungus has a purpose to convince us that this BK burger, however inherently unhealthy, isn’t also loaded with unnecessary chemicals … What makes this thing so moldy and gross is what makes it good.