Foods That Should Never Be Skinny
Pizza time. Photo credit: StockFood / Robbins, Heath
It was cut into skinny slices, and plucked off its tray by skinny people wearing skinny outfits. It was pale, and very floppy. It would have never passed muster with a self-respecting New Yorker.
It was called Skinny Pizza, and it had arrived on the isle of Manhattan under cover of night, with little fanfare, as part of a sort of upscale food mall called Hudson Eats at Brookfield Heights. And it is as bad as you’d think: Part-skim mozzarella melts un-prettily, and un-decadently. The organic sauce tasted like nothing. The crust had no personality.
Pizza is meant to be fatty, an indulgence. It should not be low-fat. What’s the point? It’d be like The Four Tops with only three guys, or just Two Stooges. Something (existentially crucial!) is missing. Pizza’s charm lies in that whole-fat mozz lying right on top of the sauce, or underneath, or wherever. It’s gooey when you bite into it. As some slice aficionados have laid out quite clearly, there’s very little charm in a skim mozz slice.
We do not want to ever see the following foods presented to us in low-fat form. Yes, we as a nation suffer from the twin epidemics of obesity and diabetes. But please let us go the “everything in moderation” route, and don’t make us eat dumbed-down renditions of:
StockFood, Eising Studio - Food Photo & Video
Although, yes, we’ve had some good gelato (made with milk, not cream) and dairy-free sorbet over the years, there’s nothing in the world like the mouthfeel of full-fat ice cream.
Bagels
Not the bagel! Do not pull out the doughy middle, and don’t even talk to us about those cardboard 100-calorie impostors called Bagel Thins. Full-fat, with a schmear, and maybe capers, and tomatoes in season, and—oh, hell—lox, too, go to town.
Nachos
This kid would be way less chirpy if those were skim nachos. Photo credit: Stockfood, Greg Elms
Chips, cheese, beans, guac, sour cream, tomatoes, good times, the best food ever. Nachos are the most delightful Americanized twist on Mexican cuisine. Mess with this full-fat onslaught by using baked tortilla chips or a sad, carb-free swap like bok choy leaves, and people are gonna get angry.
There are only three ingredients here (four, if you’re using mayonnaise) and they all need to be primo: good bread; real-deal cheese; unapologetically fatty butter. Grilled cheese forever.
Brownies
You can taste the difference in low-fat brownies. (Everyone knows it. No one talks about it.)
Cookies
"C" is for cookie. Photo credit: StockFood / Food Image Source / Food Image Source
Same deal with cookies. There are vegan cookies, and sugar-free ones, but most low-fat cookies taste like cardboard, sawdust and the sad end of a life’s dream.
Milk
Are we alone on this one? Skim milk has almost nothing in common with whole milk. When it accidentally is put into coffee, those who drink it have terrible days. This is science, folks. Opinion science.
