Dinners, Drive-Ins and Dives, Ginormous Foods, Carnival Eats, Burgers, Brew and Que, are some of the shows on the Food and Cooking Channels that glorify comfort foods, and foods of ridiculous proportions. Everything is better if fried, and the bigger serving the better. Yes, these are entertaining shows, but send a dangerous message, in that comfort food, and big portions, are a good thing, instead of what they really are, fattening foods, that are very unhealthy.

This trend in TV food shows is the polar opposite of what is going on in much of fine dining, where the portions are getting increasing smaller, sometimes leaving you unsatisfied, and molecular gastronomy is creating foods that do not look like food. So what can you do?  My recommendation, is to limit your viewing of these shows, like I do, and when you see fried food, ridiculously large portions, fatty foods, sugary foods, comfort foods, etc., do not think how these foods might taste, but instead think how unhealthy these foods are to you, and how much you would have to work out to remove the calories contained in these foods. Something to think about for 2017.