How Much Food Does The Human Body Require?

Ever since I started blogging, I’ve been paying more attention to events that occur around me and to the conversations that take place during those events (I need stories for my blog!) — people always ask me where I find the time to write and I say that the writing takes all but five minutes and it’s not the most difficult part of blogging. The challenging part is finding the story lines because if you want to have a semi-active blog, you pretty much have to post almost everyday.

I will also say that most bloggers tend to be voracious readers (you can’t write if you don’t have information and the only way to get information is to become a regular reader). So, even though I enjoy reading and writing, I’d say that the reading is what takes up more of my time, not the writing. I’d also say that you need to have a passion for writing otherwise, it would just be too much work! (I don’t know how people with multiple blogs do it. If you do, tell me how you get it done because that would be very time consuming).

Anyway, that’s not what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about the events that took place at a recent dinner that I went to for a friends graduation. It was a two hour dinner, but I’m going to highlight the events that I found to be most interesting. First, I will talk about food consumption and how much one really needs to eat. Then, I will talk about a business that this Kenyan is trying to set-up (since he started passing out business cards as we were eating).

On Food Consumption:

At the dinner, I sat next to this guy who ordered two whole entree’s in quick succession. I have never had dinner with someone who’s ordered two whole entree’s in one sitting! So, after this guy cleaned out the plates of both entree’s, I looked at him and said:

Me: “your not fat!…you must just eat one meal a day.”?

eater: “Ya…I only eat one meal a day.”

Me: “You must also work out.”

eater: “Ya….I play soccer twice a week for two hours each time.”

Me: “I see.” (End of conversation. He wanted to eat, not talk).

When he was done, his plate looked like it had been run through a dishwasher. The only thing that gave it away were the steamed broccoli and carrot pieces that were conspicuously pushed to the side).

Now, those two entree’s probably had about 1,000 calories each. So, 2,000 calories a day constitutes the right amount of caloric intake for an average sized male. So technically, if that was his first and only meal of the day, he was not overeating. That was exactly what his body needed to re-energize itself.

Lately, I’ve been trying to shed some pounds and I’ve been paying attention to how much food I’m eating (I’m trying to control my portion sizes). A couple of days last week, I was too busy during the day and I didn’t get a chance to eat until dinner time, but my body wasn’t shaking with hunger and I realized that the human body does not require three square meals a day! I suppose in the olden days when people were more active, you needed three square meals a day, but today, with all the modernization, people have become a lot less active and as a result, the body requires a lot less fuel. The problem is, there’s so much food around, that people are instinctively driven to just eat, eat, eat. I don’t know how the French stay so slim with all that butter and those rich sauces. How do they do it?

Moving on to business:

As I indicated earlier, another guest at the dinner table started handing out business cards as we were eating. As I’m trying to figure out what his business is about, the voices of hateration erupt. All of a sudden, everyone is looking at this guy and him telling him what a stupid business idea he has and how he’ll never make any money and how he needs to give it up and, and……on & on they went. What was this business? It’s a Kenyan television station that claims it will deliver 24 hour, real time news clips to your home (for a price of $19.99 a month). Why were all haters bringing out their daggers on this business idea? These were their main complaints:

I wanted to ask him why they hadn’t considered streaming the news from a website (for free) and using advertisements to build up their revenue (but the haters couldn’t control themselves and he never heard him). Also, I’m beginning to see news clips on Youtube. How are they going to compete with that? I don’t know why these guys thought they could make money with this idea. Mistake number one: They didn’t gauge the demand (although I’m not sure how you would measure that for this particular idea).

It’s the same thing the Nation and Standard are doing with their on-line subscription only sections. I’m sure that service is targeted to Kenyans in the diaspora, but I honestly don’t know anyone who has paid for any of those subscription only sections. In fact, I’m surprised they haven’t gotten the hint and taken them down. Who told the Kenyan newspapers about such a silly idea?

Let’s hear your thoughts on food and obesity and then on business and money.

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