English for Wizards

English for Wizards

By John Moore

Here's another silly bilingual riddle: Why don't Japanese people like skim milk very much? My answer: Maybe they think it's "bug mother's milk." You see, like many foreigners, I cannot tell the difference between long and short vowel sounds in Japanese. To me, 無脂肪乳 and 虫母乳 sound exactly the same.

I also drink a lot of milk. When people ask how I grew so big, I say one word: milk. But now I'm trying to get smaller (in width, not height), so I'm always looking for skim milk. It has only about 350 calories per liter, just half of whole milk.

When you're on a diet, you need lots of information about calories, and the Internet, as usual, is the best place to go. One Web page lists 183 kinds of milk, complete with photos and information about calories, fat and protein. This page is part of a rather funny and amazing site called the O-Baka Yashiki (http://www2.chocoegg.ne.jp/obaka/), like a haunted house for stupid stuff. Click on the milk pack link, the fourth picture in the second row.

Do you need to go on a diet? There's actually a mathematical formula, called Body Mass Index (BMI), to answer this question. Go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/youreight/bmi_metric.shtml for a handy BMI calculator. Just enter your height and weight. My result was 28.16. Not so good.

To find out how many calories are in your favorite foods, just search for "calorie count" in Google. Or even better, you can search for specific brand-name foods. McDonald's, for example, has lots of nutritional information at http://www.mcdonalds.com/countries/usa/food/nutrition/menuitems/. A Big Mac is 600 calories! Gosh.

The Internet can also tell you how many calories you are using. Check out the Fitness Jumpsite Activity Calorie Calculator (http://www.primusweb.com/fitnesspartner/jumpsite/calculat.htm). Enter your weight and the number of minutes you want to exercise. It will tell you how many calories your body burns for over 100 different sport activities.

So if I drink a whole liter of skim milk, 350 calories, I see it will take 18 minutes of vigorous bicycle riding to burn that off, since cycling uses 19 calories per minute for me. But I need a whole hour to ride my bike home from work, so that must use over 1,000 calories. Great!

The Internet is full of diet scams, but one useful site is the Calorie Control Council (http://www.caloriecontrol.org). It offers lots of information, including health news and various calorie calculators.

It's just strange that a dieting Web site like this has a gorgeous picture at the top showing chocolate cakes, soda pop and candy galore.

Shukan ST: Dec. 5, 2003

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