Permission: have an extra cheeseburger

At a time when just about everybody is fighting like crazy not to slip out of their current belt hole, the UK government is considering encouraging us to add another 400 calories to our diet.

They aren’t, of course, but that’s the way we will take it.

The BBC has a story on the UK’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition proposed recommendation that the 18 year calorie count for men and women be increased by 16% if the consumer is getting more exercise. That amounts to about 400 calories per day or an extra cheeseburger.

Talk about mixed messages.

Last week we learned that eating just 10 to 20 extra calories per day — that’s one peanut M&M or one tortilla chip that isn’t burned off can add two pounds in a year and an 7 year old kid who eats the average offering from a vending machine, 203 calories, would only burn it off by swimming for 88 minutes.

Now we’re being told to dine out on an extra cheeseburger?

This sounds like a weird way to deal with an obesity epidemic.