"hungry" news and stories

Anthony, AKA the Hungry Barbarian, has come up with a wager. He must survive outside for a week on nothing but what he can catch and kill - fish, crab, squirrel, earthworms - or snag from nearby farms (presumably without the farmer's knowledge). He will have water, matches, a tent, a hose and a fishing pole. If he can do it, he'll win the money from the betting pool his friends have started.

The big gimmick is this: these survivalist shenanigans will go down not in some remote national park, but in the Hamptons, the Long Island bastion of NYC elites. His neighbors will be sipping champagne on the lawn as the Hungry Barbarian forages for edible berries in their well-landscaped bushes.

Seven days without food is easily survivable (so long as one has water), but the idea of eating earthworms and skinning squirrels is pretty funny. I'm sure hijinks will ensue.

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For years, doctors, nutritionists and even parents have told people that the key to getting more satisfaction from your food is to eat more slowly. Not only does this allow you to actually enjoy the flavors in your meal, but it was always said to give the brain time to recognize the fact that it was no longer hungry, which would in turn cause you to stop eating. Up until recently, there was no clinical evidence to support that decision.

Dr. Kathleen Melanson, of the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, changed all that by conducting a study on college age women to see how much different styles of eating affected their calorie intake. All the women were given a bowl of pasta with tomato and vegetable sauce after eating a 400-calorie breakfast and fasting for four hours. One group of women was given a large spoon and told to eat as quickly as possible, not pausing between bites. The other group was given a small spoon and told to pause in between each bite, setting down the spoon and chewing 15-20 times. The fast eaters ate 646 calories in 9 minutes, while the slower eaters ate only 579 calories in 29 minutes. The slower eaters also reported feeling fuller, longer.

Melanson estimates that eating slowly could reduce the number of calories a person eats by about 210 per day.

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Where once cans of Spaghetti-os, mixed fruit and green beans were prevalent, many food banks now have a very different selection of goods, including Cookie Crisp cereal, Everlasting Gobstopper jawbreakers, Mini Oreos and Wonka Donutz.

Most of the food donated to food banks comes from grocers, manufacturers and growers. Perishables are the first items to be distributed, and take more handling and faster shipment than non-perishable goods, but with the upswing in the amount of junk foods with long shelf-lives - possibly an indication of larger food trends - some food banks are trying to make changes in their programs. They want to increase the work they do with growers of fresh foods and improve their storage systems.

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Doctors in India have quelled the hunger of a man known to eat buckets of rice and curry in a single sitting, the Hindustan Times reports. For the 64-year-old man named Rappai, eating hundreds of idlis (steamed lentil biscuits, left) in competitions was no big deal. He was apparently the bane of all-you-can-eat restaurants in Thrissur and Kerala, where he earned the nickname Theeta or "monstrous eater." Digestive problems seem to have eventually caught up with Rappai, however, and his doctors have told him to cool it. He has agreed, much to the joy of the local restaurant community, says the HT.

In the world of food advertising, it sometimes seems like the ads go from bad to worse, though there will be the occasional good one thrown in to keep the audience - that would be us - on our toes. I heard about this billboard at AdJab and when I first saw it, I had to do a double take: it is a giant, fake Cadbury bar being ripped apart by fake people. The giant-sized candy may be fake, but it looks absolutely delicious and the enthusiasm of the little, artificial people is quite funny. The ad is definitely more compelling than a simply picture of the chocolate bar would be. The billboard is in Canada, but if I have to look at billboards while I'm driving, I don't think that I'd mind seeing one of these once in a while.

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