7 ms·

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 H

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
        Lipogenesis is legitimate, but it's not the primary pathway for carb metabolism if you have a healthy diet. Glycogen is the primary way that blood sugar levels are regulated, and your body greatly prefers glycogenesis to lipogenesis. If you're exercising, your body doesn't build glycogen; rather, it shuts down the metabolic pathways for glycogenesis because burning glycogen while building it is very inefficient. (It's a form of hysteresis.) ... painting with broad strokes because my background is in biochemistry, not nutrition.
        pyre 15y ago
- zwieback 15y ago
  ObReference, haven't seen that in a while! Former rec.arts.books reader or device driver writer?
  - msluyter 15y ago
    Heh, neither, but I'm pretty sure I got it (or terms like ObJoke) from some usenet group back in the day.
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

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
        Lipogenesis is legitimate, but it's not the primary pathway for carb metabolism if you have a healthy diet. Glycogen is the primary way that blood sugar levels are regulated, and your body greatly prefers glycogenesis to lipogenesis. If you're exercising, your body doesn't build glycogen; rather, it shuts down the metabolic pathways for glycogenesis because burning glycogen while building it is very inefficient. (It's a form of hysteresis.) ... painting with broad strokes because my background is in biochemistry, not nutrition.
        pyre 15y ago
zwieback 15y ago
ObReference, haven't seen that in a while! Former rec.arts.books reader or device driver writer?
- msluyter 15y ago
  Heh, neither, but I'm pretty sure I got it (or terms like ObJoke) from some usenet group back in the day.

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