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Published: March 29 2012

Buzz Fleischman - Columnist Page.Krispy Kreme, the donut of champions is expanding internationally.
With almost half a billion dollars in sales it sees great 'growth' in foreign countries.
Hey, we see 'great growth' right here in the USA.

The airlines call them 'customers of size'. The Coast Guard has lowered passenger capacity on ferry boats because of it. The nation is carrying roughly 4.5 billion excess pounds around its middle and it's not pretty.
We're the 4th fattest country in the world with about 30% of the population either having a body mass index of 30 or a discernible 'muffin top'. Or both!

A study by The Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal, states that if the United States waddles down its current country-fried path, roughly half of American men and women will be obese by 2030 which may mean good news for Krispy Kreme.

Question: Since we as a people are getting heavier, will this have a negative effect on the planet if 2 billion of us go on vacation to South America at the same time? Can we throw it off its axis? What's an axis? We don't have to answer that question because we'll use the same thought processes as when we ponder the sun blinking out in billions of years. We'll put it behind us. And that's the problem. It's all behind us!

We have an outdated food pyramid. It's a white elephant that rears its nutty, fruity, grain-like head as a poster on the back of school cafeteria doors. Does it work?
If it did, a year's revenue from the sale of Doritos and cola in high schools wouldn't have equaled the cost of 65 nuclear aircraft carriers.

Americans have devoured the new 'comfort food pyramid' like 'Bizarre Foods' Andrew Zimmern takes to bugs.

There's nothing like some comfort food to make us feel better. Let's think out of the triangular box because the choices in the new pyramid can be taken in any order. Think food circle.
Forget 4 servings of carrots and broccoli per day. Give us something we can work with like the lowly potato. Baked in the skin and with nothing on the side, it may be good for you, but it's about as exciting as a Democratic stump speech.
Let's reconfigure that daily starch into something more palatable. That's right, French Fries! And the greasier the better! Add cheese and we're flying. I almost put them at the top of the list, but cooler heads prevailed, so Ben and Jerry's # 1 selling flavor, Cherry Garcia, made it to the top.
This is not ordinary ice cream. With Cherry Garcia you'll get10% of your MDR of Vitamin A and 15% of your Calcium, which is more than you get in TUMS, and it tastes a lot better too! Of course, after too much you may need TUMS, but what the heck, we're going for comfort here!

Next we have Pepperoni double cheese Pizza. If your name is 'resident' you'll get more pizza deals in your mailbox each week than your antacid can handle.
It goes without saying that any type of candy, cake, pudding or pie qualifies as comfort 'food'. If any of these contain chocolate you get extra points.

Question: why do these foods make us feel better? Answer: they appeal to our taste buds. A taste bud is what enables your tongue to say to your brain, "whoa! What's that?" The sensation tells you A, you never want to put that in your mouth again, or B, "Give me more"
There are five primary taste sensations: salty, sour, sweet, bitter and trust me, something called umami! Umami is the response to salts of glutamic acid - like monosodium glutamate (MSG) a flavor enhancer used in many processed foods and in many Asian dishes.

There's one taste bud no one talks about; the grease bud.
The grease taste bud has been ignored by scientists and food experts worldwide. It's like the undiscovered country, yet we all know it exists! What tastes better after a few beers than a cheeseburger and fries? NOTHING!!!!!
Snacking has surpassed the ubiquitous smart phone as the national pastime and we've brushed the aftereffects aside. But there's always cheese flavored TUMS!

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