To think that recipes like this should be banned

[wol1968]

...or at least come with a big fat warning triangle. It's Miranda Gore Brown's recipe for Hazelnut Tiramisu Cake, in this month's Essentials. It's basically a nutrition-wheel red-out, with chocolate, double cream, mascarpone, butter, sugar, sugar, booze, sugar, chocolate...you get the picture. Calorie content: 1074 cals a serving.

I'm not a food prude. I'm not a health nut. I like a slice of cake as much as the next woman. But really? Is it physically possible for anyone except endurance athletes, Arctic explorers and lanky teenagers to eat this without it affecting their health? This kind of recipe is more like drugs than food, TBH, and I think it's probably deeply irresponsible to be promoting it when so many people are worried about obesity. Yes, you can choose not to eat it, or have a smaller slice. But I'm not sure it should be glorified as delicious even though it probably is

AIB completely U to feel a bit disturbed?

I am sure Miranda Gore Brown (whoever she is) is not advocating a daily slice of her cake. Once slice as a one off is not going to turn you from size 10 to size 16. Such cakes are for special occasions.

It's the daily digesetive or two of 100 calories each that makes people chubb up.

I make these sorts of puddings, and guess what? I'm a healthy size 10. How? Because I EAT IT AS PART OF A HEALTHY DIET. it's not rocket surgery you know...

Eat everything, in moderate amounts, move a lot. Banning recipes will not solve the obesity epidemic...

Oooh i've just heard about a cake,
1,000 calories a slice
Rich in cream and choclate hmmmm
That is sounding nice.

Argh but now i've heard,
and its absurd,
that the food police,
Want to ban this recipe,
That will turn us all to fatties

So i'll zoom and get the recipe
before it has been banned
And make this cake to gobble up
The whole thing in one hand

Like a piggy at the trough
I'll make a glorious mess
As i wolf it down in one sitting
Then help cardiac arrest!

So alas let that be a lesson
Dont be gluttonous like me
Treat your body as a temple
Dont make Gor brown's recipe!

Excellent

I've not even seen the ones that are 700-900 calories

To give some context a slice of Jamaican ginger cake is 90 calories

A massive slice of chocolate cake with buttercream is 400 from Costa - it's huge

Cake isn't even that high in calories, it's a lot of air

You'd really notice if you ate a thousand calories of cake - if you eat an entire packet of Jaffa cakes I think it's 600?

Thank you for this thread OP, it's reminded me that I have a big tub of Ben & Jerry's in the freezer if there ever was a food equivalent of crack I think I've found it

You have missed out then lAurie, the more calories the yumier ;-)

FGS you could eat it and still have a sandwich and be under your daily calorie requirements unless you are 3ft tall or lie motionless in bed all day. Or you could have half a slice (looks like something I'd not finish a full slice of, but I don't think that means it needs banned).

Oh my... That cake sounds INCREDIBLE.

If I'm honest I have zero interest in the calorie content of what I consider to be a 'treat'. I hate referring to food as a treat because I'm a human not a dog so don't reward myself with food. HOWEVER I'm yet to find a better way to describe what I mean... Basically food I have a couple of times a month because I can. It isn't healthy and if I ate it every day I'd be morbidly obese but it tastes soooo good. I don't care how many calories are in it at all because it happens 24 times a year so really isn't going to make me fat. Part of a balanced diet and all that. Same as eating out at restaurants, that doesn't happen often for me so when I do go it's a 'treat' and I don't give a fuck how many calories I'm consuming.

It's when you're eating shit like this every day it becomes an issue. I'm wondering how massive a 'serving' is to be quite so many calories though, are you sure that isn't the whole cake?!

I really do want to make this cake now though... Mmm.

poolomoomon - we teach our DS that there's "every day foods" and "special occasion/not everyday foods" not good ones, not bad ones, not treat ones, special occasion food sounds better than treats to me too, because treats aren't always food, sometimes it's a magazine, a new toy, etc. (And the whole, not being a dog thing!)

But since he went to pre-school, he talks about 'treats' as sweet foods, which is rubbish.

Someone upthread linked to the recipe, it's a 20cm cake, the assumption you'd eat 1/8th, looking at the photo with it, no way I'd serve 1/8th of that cake as a portion, I'd serve a much smaller slice.

Its a very involved recipe, the sort I'd make for mothers day or easter lunch (if I didn't hate coffee in cake!), not the sort of cake I'd bake as a weekly treat. (And I do bake most weeks, but usually scones, banana bread or fairy cakes without icing, quick stuff for puddings).

I had a lovely slice of pineapple & coconut cake yesterday & it was delicious.

(Hopefully not 1000 cals though).

1074 calories is about 4 mars bars.

I agree the calories are based on a standard portion size that doesn't take into account richness.

Yanbu

Junk food causes so many illnesses and it doesn't matter if you sourced all the ingredients from planet organic its still junk. Most people justify it here as treat food, the thing is this treat food is had several times a day not several times a month. No wonder most adults are overweight.

Obvs YABU to try to ban recipes (although I get that you were tongue in cheek).

I wonder how many calories per slice in that green marzipan Swedish Princess Cake on GBBO!

Just looked it up on My Fitness Pal: 295 calories? That can't be right, it's got cake, double cream, mascarpone, jam and all covered in marzipan.

Laura - you can argue that with most things people who like to label foods as "junk", but a cake that's going to take a whole afternoon to make is something we risk people eating daily? Really?!? Who has that time?

It's clearly special occasion food, and I have no problem with double cream, butter etc in special occasion food - the average Christmas dinner is nearly 2000 cals (once you add in puddings and starters), but while some people will eat 2, most will eat this once a year, it doesn't cause obesity by itself.

Someone earlier said that Jamaican ginger cake was 90cals a slice, that's actually more of a problem because you are more likely to have bought that for "every day food", eat the whole lot over a few days and buy several. And that cake won't be cheap to make.

It's not the one offs that's the issue, it's the daily lower cal snack foods that put you over eating every day.

But then I don't believe any "real" foods (ie not the chemically fucked about with "sugar/fat free" manufactured shit) should be banned from a healthy diet, just some need their frequency reducing - banning foods rather than training to eat in moderation is why most diets fail.

I'm saying its just another daily treat ontop of the others. Maybe in the 19c a high fat high sugar and void of nutrients food was an ocassional treat, these days the treats are hourly. Oh its 11 o'clock a muffin. 3pm time for a coffee with sugar and biscuits, got the kids to bed time for another treat. In the future they will laugh at us for poisoning ourselves and our kids.

I made a cake for cake club that was over 1000 calories per slice...well over 900 anyway...can't remember the exact amount

I'm still digesting it....like a snake.....months later

It doesn't make sense to argue on the basis of what 'we' are doing when you clearly mean 'they'.

Xmas dinner aside I don't think 'they' are eating 1000 calorie slices of this cake as I think 'they' would be sick and it is an editorial mistake.

1000 calories per slice?

That is rather obscene TBH!

I don't understand the comparisons saying "it's the same as a roast dinner or a burger and chips" well yes but they are whole meals!

My fave cake at the moment waitrose new york cheesecake I just checked, 1000 calories would be half of the entire cake!

Clearly you can't ban things but if they're in shops it should be flagged if they are unexpectedly fattening. Like those M&S salads that people would assume were about, I dunno, 400 and were actually 1200 and a slice of cake I think most people would assume 200-400 and so it should be flagged if it is 1000.

I think it's absolutely fine as long as you're not eating it every day. People often massively underestimate the calorie content of foods. Because I don't really deny myself rich food I'm sure Ive managed 1000 per serving of loads of things, but don't consider myself to have a weight or health problem, because overall I eat a balanced diet and I exercise.

Food for thought..... I wonder if they hadn't taken the coke out of coca cola, wouldn't people be a lot more active? People who drank coke, obviously. I loathe the stuff and have never drunk a whole one, btw. But it would definitely get people more active, wouldn't it.

Then everyone could eat as much cake as they like!

Problem solved.

Gavel.