Tea at Trianon: Surprising Research Findings on Big Breakfasts, Hunger, and Weight Loss

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, September 25, 2022

Surprising Research Findings on Big Breakfasts, Hunger, and Weight Loss

From SciTech:

Front-loading calories early in the day reduces hunger but does not affect weight loss. In dieting, there’s the old saying that one should “breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dine like a pauper.” It is based on the belief that consuming the bulk of daily calories in the morning optimizes weight loss by burning calories more efficiently and quickly. However, according to a new study that was published on September 9 in the journal Cell Metabolism, the way a person’s body metabolizes calories is not affected by whether they eat their largest meal early or late in the day. On the other hand, the study did find that people who ate their largest meal in the morning reported feeling less hungry later in the day, which could foster easier weight loss in the real world. (Read more.)