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One meal at Per Se
Many people consider Per Se the best restaurant in Manhattan, here are some trade-offs:
The single most caloric menu item was the foie gras, weighing in at 435.4 calories; followed by café Liégeois (basically a gourmet brownie with ice cream), with 185.8 calories. The single least caloric was the buttermilk sorbet, owing in part to its spoon-size portion (23 calories). All told, the nine courses tallied 1,230.8 calories, 59.7 grams of fat, and 101.7 grams of carbs. The total rises to 2,416.2 calories, 107.8 grams of fat, and 203.7 grams of carbs if you include the extras: a salmon amuse-bouche, wine, dinner rolls with butter, and chocolate candies. These might not seem like giant numbers, but that one lunch has 60 percent more fat than the average adult, on a 2,000-calorie regimen, should eat in a day, according to the FDA. To work off that meal, a 155-pound person would have to walk the route of the New York City Marathon, plus an additional five miles. Or he could swim round-trip from Battery Park to the Statue of Liberty nearly three times, or do basic yoga for 13 hours and 42 minutes. It’s also roughly equal in calories to six slices of DiFara’s cheese pizza, ten Gray’s Papaya’s hot dogs, or, it seems appropriate to note, four and a half Big Macs.
If we can assume linearity, this $250 meal (plus wine and tax and tip) costs you about $9 worth of health. In other words, don't worry about it. Here is more, via Jason Kottke.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on April 30, 2007 at 11:01 PM in Food and Drink | Permalink
Comments
Of course, depending on your economic position, the biggest trade-off is the price: $250 a head, plus wine, tax, tip. Yowser! Luckily, there is an alternative. Keller has a relatively un-advertised restaurant in Yountville called Ad Hoc, where you can take advantage of Keller's access to the finest foods and incredible apprentices in an informal atmosphere for $45 a head three course meal. Who needs nine courses? Probably a lot less calories, too. Highly recommended.
Posted by: Dave at Apr 30, 2007 11:38:33 PM
The analysis quoted is misleading - yes, if you ate this nine-course meal at Per Se in addition to your three squares, you'd need to exercise a lot to work it off. But since someone on a 2000 calorie regimen definitionally metabolizes 2000 calories in the course of a day, your Per Se patron who skipped breakfast and had two big macs for dinner would still come in under the caloric wire.
Posted by: Milk for Free at May 1, 2007 12:17:36 AM
The $9 number is based on an average person's value of life/quality of life. For someone who consumes $250 lunches, that number is a whole lot higher, since his value of life is much higher. My rough guess (and someone can check that) would be that for a representative client of Per Se, the health cost of this meal would be approximately equal to the monetary cost.
Posted by: an economist at May 1, 2007 12:44:37 AM
I think your calorie burning for walking my be wrong, Put I ride a bicycle almost every day and burn at least 1200 calories (I have a power meter that actually measures energy/power..) One of the best thing about this is that I get to eat another meal and I like eating.
Posted by: Vincent at May 1, 2007 1:25:08 AM
Like "Milk For Free" mentioned, the supposed 30-mile necessary walk is a good example of NOT thinking at the margin. A better question is: how much more exercise is necessary to stay at health and weight equilibrium with the Per Se lunch instead of the "average" lunch (whatever that may be)?
Posted by: Sean at May 1, 2007 1:40:11 AM
I realize I can mainly get away with this because I'm a college student, but my reaction on reading the first couple sentences of the excerpt was "yeah, one of the problems with going to a nice restaurant is that they serve such small portions—it's impossible to get a decent-sized meal out of them."
I think my average meal is over 2000 calories.
Posted by: jadagul at May 1, 2007 3:03:36 AM
Why must every pleasure be tainted by the consequence police? O for the days of Diamond Jim Brady!
Posted by: ricpic at May 1, 2007 6:52:11 AM
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, jadaqui. You don't have to go to Per Se and pay $250 a head to eat a 1250 calorie meal. I can get a reuben, fries and chocolate cake at the local 24 hr. greek diner for $15 with about that many calories. And it's pretty good too.
When I pay $100+ for a fine meal (I've never paid $250), I'm not really worried about calories. I want to try everything, and I probably didn't eat breakfast or lunch or whatever to make room.
I'm guessing you won't be able to get away with 2000 calorie meals forever. That's how I used to eat when I was in college. 15 years and 100 extra lbs. later, I started adjusting my appetite a bit. 2000 is not a lot of calories if you're a larger man. I have about 175lbs of lean mass, and maintenance at a healthy weight (200-210) and activity level would involve about 3000 calories for me. Eating under 2000/day even in weight-loss mode would be too restrictive and likely to make me rebound when I stop dieting.
Posted by: Michael Sullivan at May 1, 2007 9:28:52 AM
Surely if you're rich enough to go to that restaurant, your health is worth more than the average person's?
Posted by: Chris at May 1, 2007 10:00:09 AM
The cost to the eater's health is probably more tied to his/her physical condition than anything. If you are a 72 year old obese man suffering from high cholesterol, that foie gras might cost you more than it would, say, an 18-year old on the college track team.
Posted by: fustercluck at May 1, 2007 10:08:44 AM
I've never been to Per Se (and at $250 per person it'll be a cold day in hell before I go there), but somehow I just know that most of the customers are fashionably trim.
Posted by: Peter at May 1, 2007 12:08:55 PM
If we can assume linearity
I love that this is just kind of tossed in there... Right, and I'll assume the can-opener too.
Posted by: TW Andrews at May 1, 2007 2:23:24 PM
For those who are fretting about the cost of per se, you really don't have to worry about. You may as well res at Dorsia tonight at say 8:00, or, 8:30.
Posted by: BDK at May 1, 2007 3:24:58 PM
Dude, 2400 calories is nothing, one Awesome Blossom has more than that.
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