Saturday, August 23, 2008 Marathon food event By Ober Khok
FOR a serious eater like your Uncle Ober, I’m stuffed with prided for what American aquaman Micahel Phelps has done to food. Hooray with a capital “H.”
Michael has elevated carbo-loading and purportedly cholesterol-rich food into the hall of fame in culinary history.
He has given unrepentant food offenders like me some hope that it’s OK to place crime on the plate and eat it, too.
This is the time to think with my stomach, make exaggerations and use superlatives. No need to be coy about what I think of Michael. After all, it’s only every four years that the world meets someone like him and hears of his food feat.
Let me digress and get technical.
Per wikianswers.com, “each season’s Games occur every four years and are staggered by two years. This means there is an Olympic Games every two years.” This year, we have the Summer Olympics. Then in “2010, the Winter Olympics, in 2012, the Summer Olympics and in 2014, the Winter Olympics will be held.”
The schedules confuse me (I have peanut size brain) but what remains a fact is that Michael deserves the eight gold medals he won for swimming (am I losing count?). If there were an Olympic event for food marathon, the honor will go to the young man.
To get his power to do butterfly strokes with ease, Michael’s recommended calorie intake is 8,000 to 10,000 calories to feed his six-fooot four-inch, 192-pound body.
I’m a millimeter shy of being 5’7” but I am sure my meals don’t tip toward 4,500 calories a day even when I gorge on lechon.
He is a hearty eater to make an understatement. (Is there a world record for understatements?)
I could do two egg sandwiches, all the coffee (even three cups but I would be tempting The Reaper to “come and get me” with that), one omelet and even the pancakes but after that, I would go into coma. Michael loads up on food you probably couldn’t cope with.
Breakfast: Three gargantuan fried egg sandwiches (lashed with cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, fried onions and mayonnaise); three chocolate-chip pancakes; five-egg omelets; three sugar-coated slices of French toast; basin-size bowl of grits; and two cups of coffee.
Are you ready for lunch? What? That was breakfast?
Lunch: Half-kilogram (one pound) of enriched pasta (with tomato); two garage-size ham and cheese sandwiches slathered with mayonnaise on white bread; and energy drinks to wash them down.
You would think Michael wouldn’t need dinner.
I can’t even look at the menu and not think that it’s fit for a group of 10 hungry food offenders.
Dinner: Half-kilogram of pasta with carbonara sauce; large pizza; and energy drinks.
His breakfast alone can constitute my food budget for the day, with leftovers for my Tita Blitte to rehash next day. And so it makes me think — with my stomach, of course: Where does he file all that stuff?
Obviously, in his Superman-like limbs, lungs and brain. I read in the news that he swims 50 miles per week. Nutritionists say he needs mega doses of what he’s eating now to power his game. If he were to eat the good stuff — fruits and vegetables — he would sink. For sure, during off season, he eats a normal, non-Olympic diet.
Michael did the 200m butterfly event with a 1 min. 52:03 sec time and broke a record.
I can do six pancakes one at a time in with the same speed but I wouldn’t be breaking even a plate.
In spite of all the evil food in me, I can only do dog paddles in the kiddie pool.
