Tuesday, February 17, 2009

LA Times, Joy Of Cooking, and Calories

Posted by Trott

The Los Angeles Times has published an article reporting on a study that suggests that calories in the recipes in The Joy of Cooking have ballooned over the years. I think that the chart that accompanies the article presents a more interesting picture than the article.

Putting aside the objection that the sample size of recipes is rather small—the study compared less than 20 of the cookbook's more than 4000 recipes—one can see that the calories have not increased slowly and steadily since 1936. Instead, they increase slowly and steadily from 1936 to 1963. But the 1975 and 1997 editions both have lower calorie counts than the 1963 edition.

Lastly, all six editions sampled prior to the current 2006 edition have the mean calories at less than 300. It is only the current edition that has a whopping 384 calories mean.

As for the text of the article, the most interesting parts to me are the observation that the size of dinner plates have increased (making portions that used to look ordinary appear small) and the awesome rebuttal by the editor of the 2006 edition.

(Via Brian Kahrs)

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2 Comments:

 Anonymous said...

FYI, the "happy fun button" sucks. It continues to be neither happy nor fun.

What would be fun is if this page stayed yellow like I like it, and as it used to be. Come to think of it, that might also make me happy.

8:54 PM, February 21, 2009
 Trott said...

You sure are needy, Mr. Anonymous.

9:49 AM, February 22, 2009

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