8 ms·

What Google's Famous Cafeterias Can Teach Us About Health

210 points by sasvari 15y ago

edw519 15y ago
The pricing strategy is based on nutrient content, again according to the Harvard pyramid plan. For the vended products, you pay: one cent per gram of sugar, two cents per gram of fat, four cents per gram of saturated fat, one dollar per gram of trans fat... Reminds me of the time I encountered a world renowned nutritional expert... edw519: "I'm having trouble understanding these food labels." expert: "Don't eat anything with a label."
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- zck 15y ago
  Jack LaLanne made two relevant comments (http://www.jacklalanne.com/jacks-adventures/lalanneisms.php http://www.jacklalanne.com/jacks-adventures/lalanneisms.php): >If man makes it, don’t eat it. >If it tastes good, spit it out.
michael_dorfman 15y ago
The only place on the campus where employees pay for food is from a vending machine. The pricing strategy is based on nutrient content, again according to the Harvard pyramid plan. For the vended products, you pay: one cent per gram of sugar two cents per gram of fat four cents per gram of saturated fat one *dollar* per gram of trans fat That's very cool. I'd love to see this concept get wider usage.
- bretthopper 15y ago
  It would be very cool if it was correct. How is sugar the cheapest?
  - juliano_q 15y ago
    Agreed. The idea is very good, but the implementation sucks.
    - mseebach 15y ago
      Not so sure about the quality of the idea. It's very hard to objectively quantify nutritional value to the precision required, igniting controversy about the right price point. It's good to make sure healthy food is available, but ultimately only people themselves can decide what to eat - the fact that candy and snacks with saturated fats are available in the first place illustrates that very clearly.
- msluyter 15y ago
  It saddens me to see that sugar costs less than fat. ObReference to "Good Calories, Bad Calories."
  - tomerico 15y ago
    Well technically, sugar costs more per calorie than fat. As one gram of sugar is 4 calories and one gram of fat is 9 calories.
    - TheSOB88 15y ago
      Right, but it's not the total calories that folks like me and mslyuter are worried about. Sugar and other carbs, when digested, raise blood sugar levels, which in turn raises insulin. Then, blood sugar gets sucked into fat cells and converted into fat simply because of the insulin. So those calories don't even get a chance to be used in their original form before they're stored as fat. IMO the various ways blood sugar affects your appetite and your body chemistry are probably more responsible for the obesity epidemic than the high-calorie content of fatty foods.
      - oasisbob 15y ago
        So those calories don't even get a chance to be used in their original form before they're stored as fat. Sure they do! Don't forget about glycogen.
        TheSOB88 15y ago
        I don't know if we're understanding each other... I'm saying that there are carbs that get transformed into fat. These calories, by definition, do not get used until the fat is released from that cell. Which could be a loooong time. You're right, glycogen is another place that carbs can go. But unless you're exercising there probably isn't a lot going there.
        oasisbob 15y ago
- dekayed 15y ago
  Unfortunately it seems to penalize people who choose to eat more fat vs. carbs.
  - FaceKicker 15y ago
    That's a problem with the entire green/yellow/red color-coding system at Google as well - the labels seem to be in line with the common belief that whole grains = always good and dietary fat = always bad. Then again, it's not really difficult to figure out from the list of ingredients whether food is in line with your personal dietary belief system, so the color-coding system isn't really all that valuable to begin with.
    - martianpenguin 15y ago
      some people would rather not have to put energy into figuring any of this stuff out on their own... so they'll just trust the Harvard based research. Even if you don't agree with it, it's still not the worst diet ever unless you have some intolerances to things like gluten that you're unaware of. I would hope that if you're not in shape or currently getting in shape you wouldn't keep eating the same diet and assume it's going to fix your problem.
    - swah 15y ago
      "personal dietary belief system", that's how I imagine Google employees talking about food.
    - Hisoka 15y ago
      That problem stems from the source that Google chose to base their system off - the Harvard Pyramid. They wanted to be as least controversial as possible (aka popular conventions) so whole grains are viewed as healthy, and fatty foods aren't. That's the principle we've been hammered from the government and food associations since forever. Unfortunately, it's wrong, and just a little research reveals it. But people will always want to refute you... because they've been so used to it, and they don't want to give it up. Unfortunately, not being controversial is also the same as being wrong in this case
- brianbreslin 15y ago
  I'd love to see sample prices from said vending machine. I.e. 2oz bag of m&m = $1 or snickers bar = $2
cletus 15y ago
One correction and one comment: The article says cafeterias are available 24/7. That is not technically correct. The cafeterias are open for various meals on various days (eg one might do breakfast and lunch 5 days a week, another might do lunch 5 days a week and dinner 4 days a week). What are available 24/7 are the micro-kitchens, which have coffee machines, breakfast cereal, various snacks, sodas, ice tea, etc. It is true that these do tend to have a healthier focus but it depends on what office you're in. Also, I don't know what vending machines there are. I haven't seen any but then again I'm based on New York (although I've spent quite a bit of time in Mountain View). So I'm not sure how the article reaches the conclusion it does because, at least in Mountain View, it's entirely possible to eat nothing but Oreos and Kit-Kats from the MKs 24/7. It is true however that those items do tend to be on the lower shelves. Lastly, this article seems very focused on Mountain View but that's only one of many offices, although it is by far the largest. In New York for example there are no bikes but there are scooters (the building we're in is an entire downtown city block and one of our floors is the entire floor so scooters actually do come in handy for traversing level 4). I haven't seen bikes or scooters outside of these two offices however.
- gjm11 15y ago
  > I'm not sure how the article reaches the conclusion it does because [...] it's possible to eat nothing but Oreos and Kit-Kats [...] What conclusion do you think it reaches that's incompatible with that? It looks to me as if the article says that Google's facilities encourage healthy eating, not that they force it. That's perfectly consistent with not making it impossible to subsist on Oreos and Kit-Kats if you're determined to do so.
- rbright 15y ago
  There's a vending machine in 43, second floor.
  - nostrademons 15y ago
    ...which is a prank, actually. Google's first SRE bought it as a joke, and stocks it out-of-pocket. I've heard he actually loses money on it.
scottyallen 15y ago
The vending machine isn't quite what the article makes it out to be. For starters, it's one vending machine in all of Google (as far as I know). It magically appeared one April Fool's day, and has been attributed to some of the SREs in charge of keeping web search running, but credit has never been claimed. There was a rather funny "I am spartacus" thread about the vending machine that appeared on a major email list after one of the facilities or kitchen management asked who was responsible, ostensibly so they could congratulate them. I no longer work at Google (though I used to work downstairs from the vending machine), so it's awesome to hear it's still up and running and being stocked. I believe, at least for a while, facilities/cafe staff were officially condoning it if not restocking it. Definitely one of the more clever pranks I saw around campus.
- jackowayed 15y ago
  Does Google have a culture of pranks/hacks? It certainly makes sense, but I've never really heard anything about it
  - tybris 15y ago
    Gmail is an ongoing April fool's prank. Also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googles_hoaxes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googles_hoaxes
  - etruong42 15y ago
    I'd say so. The most recent which I am aware of was the nyan cat youtube video had a nyan cat progress bar. http://venturebeat.com/2011/06/17/youtube-nyan-cat-progress-bar/ http://venturebeat.com/2011/06/17/youtube-nyan-cat-progress-...
  - scottyallen 15y ago
    Yes, some places more than others, though. It's not highly generally highly publicized. That is, other than the "offical" April Fool's jokes. Googlers LOVE April Fool's day, and there's generally a solid handful of nonpublic April Fool's day jokes on campus. But there's also just random pranks. Some I'm aware of: - Everyone's photos on the internal people database (available on an internal website) showed up with either crazy sunglasses or mustaches. Someone, probably a vision researcher, used facial recognition to do in bulk. - Eric's picture had a photo on the wall behind him, and the photo was very subtly swapped with a picture of Bill Gates. - There was a long series of pranks having to do with pink plastic flamingos and the T-Rex skeleton in Mountain View that were quite funny, though I forgot the full sequence. It had to do with T-Rex being surrounded by pink flamingos, then someone changed it to flamingos attacking T-Rex, then someone else brought a giant can of "flamingo bait", and all the flamingos were lying dead around T-Rex. It unfolded over a week or two, with it changing every few days. - I was on a team that pranked each other whenever someone went on vacation. The most memorable of which involved filling a 12'x12'x8' glass walled office from floor to ceiling with pink balloons: http://www.menalto.com/photos/miscellaneous/google/Pranks/2000PinkBalloons http://www.menalto.com/photos/miscellaneous/google/Pranks/20...
Tharkun 15y ago
I do wish more companies would take lessons from this. Sadly it seems like this will only ever work for relatively big companies. Having to hire someone to cook for a team of 10 doesn't really seem worth it. And feeding a team of 10 anything other than sandwiches seems impractical. There are many catering services out there that (pardon the pun) cater to smaller crowds, but in my experience their food is invariably crap. Think hospital chow. I'd like to see this void filled. Surely there's room for a "health lunches delivered on your doorstep"-startup? Because face it, we programmers need to be fed healthy food, because our natural instincts seem to direct us to the nearest pizza place.
- jarrettcoggin 15y ago
  I work in a office building, and the company has two of the floors. In a small area on the first floor, there's a little cafe. They make awesome sandwiches and they cater to companies as well. From what I understand though, there are only two of these under this brand. I believe it's called Cafe and Catering Co.
- culturestate 15y ago
  These are beginning to pop up. A couple of ex-Google chefs started Gastronaut (http://www.gastronautsf.com/ http://www.gastronautsf.com/), and I swear I saw something about YC funding a similar concept recently but I can't for the life of me find the name.
  - nitrogen 15y ago
    Were you thinking of ZeroCater? http://www.zerocater.com/ http://www.zerocater.com/
    - culturestate 15y ago
      Yep, that's the one. Thanks!
- jrockway 15y ago
  "health lunches delivered on your doorstep" This exists. There was a NYT article a few years ago about options in New York: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/dining/05diet.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/dining/05diet.html In Chicago, I use Organic Life: http://www.organiclifeonline.com/ http://www.organiclifeonline.com/
hzay 15y ago
1. The food is not available 24/7. There are snacks 24/7 but not the "famous food program". 2. Not all of it is totally free. There are paid breakfast services in some offices.
rumyweb 15y ago
http://photosite4u.blogspot.com/2011/06/kelly-brook-hot-and-sexy-british-model.html#.Th8VObPmZME.hackernews http://photosite4u.blogspot.com/2011/06/kelly-brook-hot-and-...
zentechen 15y ago
My fav: Smaller plate -> smaller portion. That should be something easy to get started for any company.
- simonsarris 15y ago
  The food network did a big segment a while back on obesity and concluded that the simplest and most effective lifestyle choice you can make is using smaller plates.
acconrad 15y ago
Trying to include vegetables in everything? Smart. But in no way are SunChips "eat anytime" food...certainly not healthier than walnuts. You don't see a page like this (http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=99 http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=99) about SunChips. If you want sound nutritional advice, I would tweak the Harvard pyramid in two ways: there's nothing you can gain from whole grains that you can't gain from fruits and vegetables. They should generally be regarded as yellow. The other thing is that they feature some really unhealthy fats that they consider to be healthy: soy, canola, sunflower, peanut, and other vegetable oils. Truly healthy fats would be red palm, coconut, olive and macadamia. And while I applaud the idea of making junk food more expensive, their implementation based on macronutrients is horribly flawed. Sugar (which could include high-fructose corn syrup) is cheaper and offers virtually no benefit unless you are priming for a workout and require the energy and insulin spike. Fat provides satiety and promotes hormonal balance, particularly if the omegas (3,6,9) are balanced. They're off to a good start, but the article did a horrible job of illustrating how healthy they are.
- die_sekte 15y ago
  Canola oil is basically the only mainstream cooking oil with a somewhat healthy omega-3/6 ratio. Why do you think it's unhealthy?
  - Shorel 15y ago
    It stops being healthy if you heat it enough. Like frying stuff with it.
  - TheSOB88 15y ago
    I think it boils down to canola oil being highly processed, which makes it contain trans fats. Would you like to know more? http://www.marksdailyapple.com/dear-mark-canola-oil/ http://www.marksdailyapple.com/dear-mark-canola-oil/
vvpan 15y ago
I really dislike these "what X can teach us about Y" titles, especially when they are misused. Like in this case, where "Google's Famous Cafeteria" has nothing to teach us about health which we did not know. It can make us jealous, though.
grannyg00se 15y ago
Sun Chips get a GREEN while 0.8 ounces of walnuts get a YELLOW label. What the hell?!
quadrant6 15y ago
In our office, the cupboards are stocked with Coke, V, Potato Chips and snack bars.
warmfuzzykitten 15y ago
It's crazy to charge twice as much for fat as for sugar. Sure, fat has a little over twice as many calories as sugar, but fat won't give you diabetes and kill you. Sugar is actively dangerous. The country is still in the grip of the low-fat diet fad which has had the result of...wait for it...making us all fatter. And sicker.
fedd 15y ago
i think i would be hungry all the time at google

210 points by sasvari 15y ago

The pricing strategy is based on nutrient content, again according to the Harvard pyramid plan. For the vended products, you pay: one cent per gram of sugar, two cents per gram of fat, four cents per gram of saturated fat, one dollar per gram of trans fat... Reminds me of the time I encountered a world renowned nutritional expert... edw519: "I'm having trouble understanding these food labels." expert: "Don't eat anything with a label."

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
zck 15y ago
Jack LaLanne made two relevant comments (http://www.jacklalanne.com/jacks-adventures/lalanneisms.php http://www.jacklalanne.com/jacks-adventures/lalanneisms.php): >If man makes it, don’t eat it. >If it tastes good, spit it out.

michael_dorfman 15y ago

The only place on the campus where employees pay for food is from a vending machine. The pricing strategy is based on nutrient content, again according to the Harvard pyramid plan. For the vended products, you pay: one cent per gram of sugar two cents per gram of fat four cents per gram of saturated fat one *dollar* per gram of trans fat That's very cool. I'd love to see this concept get wider usage.

bretthopper 15y ago
It would be very cool if it was correct. How is sugar the cheapest?
- juliano_q 15y ago
  Agreed. The idea is very good, but the implementation sucks.
  - mseebach 15y ago
    Not so sure about the quality of the idea. It's very hard to objectively quantify nutritional value to the precision required, igniting controversy about the right price point. It's good to make sure healthy food is available, but ultimately only people themselves can decide what to eat - the fact that candy and snacks with saturated fats are available in the first place illustrates that very clearly.
msluyter 15y ago
It saddens me to see that sugar costs less than fat. ObReference to "Good Calories, Bad Calories."
- tomerico 15y ago
  Well technically, sugar costs more per calorie than fat. As one gram of sugar is 4 calories and one gram of fat is 9 calories.
  - TheSOB88 15y ago
    Right, but it's not the total calories that folks like me and mslyuter are worried about. Sugar and other carbs, when digested, raise blood sugar levels, which in turn raises insulin. Then, blood sugar gets sucked into fat cells and converted into fat simply because of the insulin. So those calories don't even get a chance to be used in their original form before they're stored as fat. IMO the various ways blood sugar affects your appetite and your body chemistry are probably more responsible for the obesity epidemic than the high-calorie content of fatty foods.
    - oasisbob 15y ago
      So those calories don't even get a chance to be used in their original form before they're stored as fat. Sure they do! Don't forget about glycogen.
      - TheSOB88 15y ago
        I don't know if we're understanding each other... I'm saying that there are carbs that get transformed into fat. These calories, by definition, do not get used until the fat is released from that cell. Which could be a loooong time. You're right, glycogen is another place that carbs can go. But unless you're exercising there probably isn't a lot going there.
        oasisbob 15y ago
dekayed 15y ago
Unfortunately it seems to penalize people who choose to eat more fat vs. carbs.
- FaceKicker 15y ago
  That's a problem with the entire green/yellow/red color-coding system at Google as well - the labels seem to be in line with the common belief that whole grains = always good and dietary fat = always bad. Then again, it's not really difficult to figure out from the list of ingredients whether food is in line with your personal dietary belief system, so the color-coding system isn't really all that valuable to begin with.
  - martianpenguin 15y ago
    some people would rather not have to put energy into figuring any of this stuff out on their own... so they'll just trust the Harvard based research. Even if you don't agree with it, it's still not the worst diet ever unless you have some intolerances to things like gluten that you're unaware of. I would hope that if you're not in shape or currently getting in shape you wouldn't keep eating the same diet and assume it's going to fix your problem.
  - swah 15y ago
    "personal dietary belief system", that's how I imagine Google employees talking about food.
  - Hisoka 15y ago
    That problem stems from the source that Google chose to base their system off - the Harvard Pyramid. They wanted to be as least controversial as possible (aka popular conventions) so whole grains are viewed as healthy, and fatty foods aren't. That's the principle we've been hammered from the government and food associations since forever. Unfortunately, it's wrong, and just a little research reveals it. But people will always want to refute you... because they've been so used to it, and they don't want to give it up. Unfortunately, not being controversial is also the same as being wrong in this case
brianbreslin 15y ago
I'd love to see sample prices from said vending machine. I.e. 2oz bag of m&m = $1 or snickers bar = $2

cletus 15y ago

One correction and one comment: The article says cafeterias are available 24/7. That is not technically correct. The cafeterias are open for various meals on various days (eg one might do breakfast and lunch 5 days a week, another might do lunch 5 days a week and dinner 4 days a week). What are available 24/7 are the micro-kitchens, which have coffee machines, breakfast cereal, various snacks, sodas, ice tea, etc. It is true that these do tend to have a healthier focus but it depends on what office you're in. Also, I don't know what vending machines there are. I haven't seen any but then again I'm based on New York (although I've spent quite a bit of time in Mountain View). So I'm not sure how the article reaches the conclusion it does because, at least in Mountain View, it's entirely possible to eat nothing but Oreos and Kit-Kats from the MKs 24/7. It is true however that those items do tend to be on the lower shelves. Lastly, this article seems very focused on Mountain View but that's only one of many offices, although it is by far the largest. In New York for example there are no bikes but there are scooters (the building we're in is an entire downtown city block and one of our floors is the entire floor so scooters actually do come in handy for traversing level 4). I haven't seen bikes or scooters outside of these two offices however.

gjm11 15y ago
> I'm not sure how the article reaches the conclusion it does because [...] it's possible to eat nothing but Oreos and Kit-Kats [...] What conclusion do you think it reaches that's incompatible with that? It looks to me as if the article says that Google's facilities encourage healthy eating, not that they force it. That's perfectly consistent with not making it impossible to subsist on Oreos and Kit-Kats if you're determined to do so.
rbright 15y ago
There's a vending machine in 43, second floor.
- nostrademons 15y ago
  ...which is a prank, actually. Google's first SRE bought it as a joke, and stocks it out-of-pocket. I've heard he actually loses money on it.

scottyallen 15y ago

The vending machine isn't quite what the article makes it out to be. For starters, it's one vending machine in all of Google (as far as I know). It magically appeared one April Fool's day, and has been attributed to some of the SREs in charge of keeping web search running, but credit has never been claimed. There was a rather funny "I am spartacus" thread about the vending machine that appeared on a major email list after one of the facilities or kitchen management asked who was responsible, ostensibly so they could congratulate them. I no longer work at Google (though I used to work downstairs from the vending machine), so it's awesome to hear it's still up and running and being stocked. I believe, at least for a while, facilities/cafe staff were officially condoning it if not restocking it. Definitely one of the more clever pranks I saw around campus.

jackowayed 15y ago
Does Google have a culture of pranks/hacks? It certainly makes sense, but I've never really heard anything about it
- tybris 15y ago
  Gmail is an ongoing April fool's prank. Also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googles_hoaxes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googles_hoaxes
- etruong42 15y ago
  I'd say so. The most recent which I am aware of was the nyan cat youtube video had a nyan cat progress bar. http://venturebeat.com/2011/06/17/youtube-nyan-cat-progress-bar/ http://venturebeat.com/2011/06/17/youtube-nyan-cat-progress-...
- scottyallen 15y ago
  Yes, some places more than others, though. It's not highly generally highly publicized. That is, other than the "offical" April Fool's jokes. Googlers LOVE April Fool's day, and there's generally a solid handful of nonpublic April Fool's day jokes on campus. But there's also just random pranks. Some I'm aware of: - Everyone's photos on the internal people database (available on an internal website) showed up with either crazy sunglasses or mustaches. Someone, probably a vision researcher, used facial recognition to do in bulk. - Eric's picture had a photo on the wall behind him, and the photo was very subtly swapped with a picture of Bill Gates. - There was a long series of pranks having to do with pink plastic flamingos and the T-Rex skeleton in Mountain View that were quite funny, though I forgot the full sequence. It had to do with T-Rex being surrounded by pink flamingos, then someone changed it to flamingos attacking T-Rex, then someone else brought a giant can of "flamingo bait", and all the flamingos were lying dead around T-Rex. It unfolded over a week or two, with it changing every few days. - I was on a team that pranked each other whenever someone went on vacation. The most memorable of which involved filling a 12'x12'x8' glass walled office from floor to ceiling with pink balloons: http://www.menalto.com/photos/miscellaneous/google/Pranks/2000PinkBalloons http://www.menalto.com/photos/miscellaneous/google/Pranks/20...

Tharkun 15y ago

I do wish more companies would take lessons from this. Sadly it seems like this will only ever work for relatively big companies. Having to hire someone to cook for a team of 10 doesn't really seem worth it. And feeding a team of 10 anything other than sandwiches seems impractical. There are many catering services out there that (pardon the pun) cater to smaller crowds, but in my experience their food is invariably crap. Think hospital chow. I'd like to see this void filled. Surely there's room for a "health lunches delivered on your doorstep"-startup? Because face it, we programmers need to be fed healthy food, because our natural instincts seem to direct us to the nearest pizza place.

jarrettcoggin 15y ago
I work in a office building, and the company has two of the floors. In a small area on the first floor, there's a little cafe. They make awesome sandwiches and they cater to companies as well. From what I understand though, there are only two of these under this brand. I believe it's called Cafe and Catering Co.
culturestate 15y ago
These are beginning to pop up. A couple of ex-Google chefs started Gastronaut (http://www.gastronautsf.com/ http://www.gastronautsf.com/), and I swear I saw something about YC funding a similar concept recently but I can't for the life of me find the name.
- nitrogen 15y ago
  Were you thinking of ZeroCater? http://www.zerocater.com/ http://www.zerocater.com/
  - culturestate 15y ago
    Yep, that's the one. Thanks!
jrockway 15y ago
"health lunches delivered on your doorstep" This exists. There was a NYT article a few years ago about options in New York: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/dining/05diet.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/dining/05diet.html In Chicago, I use Organic Life: http://www.organiclifeonline.com/ http://www.organiclifeonline.com/

hzay 15y ago

1. The food is not available 24/7. There are snacks 24/7 but not the "famous food program". 2. Not all of it is totally free. There are paid breakfast services in some offices.

rumyweb 15y ago

http://photosite4u.blogspot.com/2011/06/kelly-brook-hot-and-sexy-british-model.html#.Th8VObPmZME.hackernews http://photosite4u.blogspot.com/2011/06/kelly-brook-hot-and-...

zentechen 15y ago

My fav: Smaller plate -> smaller portion. That should be something easy to get started for any company.

simonsarris 15y ago
The food network did a big segment a while back on obesity and concluded that the simplest and most effective lifestyle choice you can make is using smaller plates.

acconrad 15y ago

Trying to include vegetables in everything? Smart. But in no way are SunChips "eat anytime" food...certainly not healthier than walnuts. You don't see a page like this (http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=99 http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=99) about SunChips. If you want sound nutritional advice, I would tweak the Harvard pyramid in two ways: there's nothing you can gain from whole grains that you can't gain from fruits and vegetables. They should generally be regarded as yellow. The other thing is that they feature some really unhealthy fats that they consider to be healthy: soy, canola, sunflower, peanut, and other vegetable oils. Truly healthy fats would be red palm, coconut, olive and macadamia. And while I applaud the idea of making junk food more expensive, their implementation based on macronutrients is horribly flawed. Sugar (which could include high-fructose corn syrup) is cheaper and offers virtually no benefit unless you are priming for a workout and require the energy and insulin spike. Fat provides satiety and promotes hormonal balance, particularly if the omegas (3,6,9) are balanced. They're off to a good start, but the article did a horrible job of illustrating how healthy they are.

die_sekte 15y ago
Canola oil is basically the only mainstream cooking oil with a somewhat healthy omega-3/6 ratio. Why do you think it's unhealthy?
- Shorel 15y ago
  It stops being healthy if you heat it enough. Like frying stuff with it.
- TheSOB88 15y ago
  I think it boils down to canola oil being highly processed, which makes it contain trans fats. Would you like to know more? http://www.marksdailyapple.com/dear-mark-canola-oil/ http://www.marksdailyapple.com/dear-mark-canola-oil/

vvpan 15y ago

I really dislike these "what X can teach us about Y" titles, especially when they are misused. Like in this case, where "Google's Famous Cafeteria" has nothing to teach us about health which we did not know. It can make us jealous, though.

grannyg00se 15y ago

Sun Chips get a GREEN while 0.8 ounces of walnuts get a YELLOW label. What the hell?!

quadrant6 15y ago

In our office, the cupboards are stocked with Coke, V, Potato Chips and snack bars.

warmfuzzykitten 15y ago

It's crazy to charge twice as much for fat as for sugar. Sure, fat has a little over twice as many calories as sugar, but fat won't give you diabetes and kill you. Sugar is actively dangerous. The country is still in the grip of the low-fat diet fad which has had the result of...wait for it...making us all fatter. And sicker.

fedd 15y ago

i think i would be hungry all the time at google