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What Google's Famous Cafeterias Can Teach Us About Health

theatlantic.com

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Re: What Google's Famous Cafeterias Can Teach Us About Health

#11

Post by jackowayed »

scottyallen wrote: post #9

The vending machine isn't quite what the article makes it out to be. For starters, it's one vending machine in all of Google (as far as I know). It magically appeared one April Fool's day, and has been attributed to some of the SREs in charge of keeping web search running, but credit has never been claimed. There was a rather funny "I am spartacus" thread about the vending machine that appeared on a major email list…

Does Google have a culture of pranks/hacks? It certainly makes sense, but I've never really heard anything about it

Re: What Google's Famous Cafeterias Can Teach Us About Health

#12

Post by FaceKicker »

dekayed wrote: post #6
michael_dorfman wrote: post #2

The only place on the campus where employees pay for food is from a vending machine. The pricing strategy is based on nutrient content, again according to the Harvard pyramid plan. For the vended products, you pay: one cent per gram of sugar two cents per gram of fat four cents per gram of saturated fat one *dollar* per gram of trans fat That's very cool. I'd love to see this concept get wider usage.

Unfortunately it seems to penalize people who choose to eat more fat vs. carbs.

That's a problem with the entire green/yellow/red color-coding system at Google as well - the labels seem to be in line with the common belief that whole grains = always good and dietary fat = always bad.

Then again, it's not really difficult to figure out from the list of ingredients whether food is in line with your personal dietary belief system, so the color-coding system isn't really all that valuable to begin with.

Re: What Google's Famous Cafeterias Can Teach Us About Health

#13

Post by martianpenguin »

FaceKicker wrote: post #12
dekayed wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately it seems to penalize people who choose to eat more fat vs. carbs.

That's a problem with the entire green/yellow/red color-coding system at Google as well - the labels seem to be in line with the common belief that whole grains = always good and dietary fat = always bad. Then again, it's not really difficult to figure out from the list of ingredients whether food is in line with your personal dietary belief system, so the color-coding system isn't really all that valuable to begin w…

some people would rather not have to put energy into figuring any of this stuff out on their own... so they'll just trust the Harvard based research. Even if you don't agree with it, it's still not the worst diet ever unless you have some intolerances to things like gluten that you're unaware of.

I would hope that if you're not in shape or currently getting in shape you wouldn't keep eating the same diet and assume it's going to fix your problem.

Re: What Google's Famous Cafeterias Can Teach Us About Health

#14

Post by zwieback »

msluyter wrote: post #5
michael_dorfman wrote: post #2

The only place on the campus where employees pay for food is from a vending machine. The pricing strategy is based on nutrient content, again according to the Harvard pyramid plan. For the vended products, you pay: one cent per gram of sugar two cents per gram of fat four cents per gram of saturated fat one *dollar* per gram of trans fat That's very cool. I'd love to see this concept get wider usage.

It saddens me to see that sugar costs less than fat. ObReference to "Good Calories, Bad Calories."

ObReference, haven't seen that in a while! Former rec.arts.books reader or device driver writer?

Re: What Google's Famous Cafeterias Can Teach Us About Health

#15

Post by brianbreslin »

michael_dorfman wrote: post #2

The only place on the campus where employees pay for food is from a vending machine. The pricing strategy is based on nutrient content, again according to the Harvard pyramid plan. For the vended products, you pay: one cent per gram of sugar two cents per gram of fat four cents per gram of saturated fat one *dollar* per gram of trans fat That's very cool. I'd love to see this concept get wider usage.

I'd love to see sample prices from said vending machine. I.e. 2oz bag of m&m = $1 or snickers bar = $2

Re: What Google's Famous Cafeterias Can Teach Us About Health

#16

Post by Tharkun »

I do wish more companies would take lessons from this. Sadly it seems like this will only ever work for relatively big companies. Having to hire someone to cook for a team of 10 doesn't really seem worth it. And feeding a team of 10 anything other than sandwiches seems impractical.

There are many catering services out there that (pardon the pun) cater to smaller crowds, but in my experience their food is invariably crap. Think hospital chow. I'd like to see this void filled. Surely there's room for a "health lunches delivered on your doorstep"-startup? Because face it, we programmers need to be fed healthy food, because our natural instincts seem to direct us to the nearest pizza place.

Re: What Google's Famous Cafeterias Can Teach Us About Health

#17

Post by runningdogx »

dekayed wrote: post #6
michael_dorfman wrote: post #2

The only place on the campus where employees pay for food is from a vending machine. The pricing strategy is based on nutrient content, again according to the Harvard pyramid plan. For the vended products, you pay: one cent per gram of sugar two cents per gram of fat four cents per gram of saturated fat one *dollar* per gram of trans fat That's very cool. I'd love to see this concept get wider usage.

Unfortunately it seems to penalize people who choose to eat more fat vs. carbs.

Indeed. Quaker chewy granola is identified (by price -- $0.15) as a good food, which may be true if you're out hiking, but as part of an urban lifestyle, granola bars are a glycemic disaster.

By contrast, someone who eats an otherwise moderately healthy diet can eat the caloric equivalent of several granola bars worth of walnuts -- identified by google as a "yellow" food -- with no ill effects, and certainly no insulin spike.

Re: What Google's Famous Cafeterias Can Teach Us About Health

#18

Post by tybris »

jackowayed wrote: post #11
scottyallen wrote: post #9

The vending machine isn't quite what the article makes it out to be. For starters, it's one vending machine in all of Google (as far as I know). It magically appeared one April Fool's day, and has been attributed to some of the SREs in charge of keeping web search running, but credit has never been claimed. There was a rather funny "I am spartacus" thread about the vending machine that appeared on a major email list…

Does Google have a culture of pranks/hacks? It certainly makes sense, but I've never really heard anything about it

Gmail is an ongoing April fool's prank.

Also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googles_hoaxes

Re: What Google's Famous Cafeterias Can Teach Us About Health

#20

Post by rbright »

cletus wrote: post #3

One correction and one comment: The article says cafeterias are available 24/7. That is not technically correct. The cafeterias are open for various meals on various days (eg one might do breakfast and lunch 5 days a week, another might do lunch 5 days a week and dinner 4 days a week). What are available 24/7 are the micro-kitchens, which have coffee machines, breakfast cereal, various snacks, sodas, ice tea, etc. It…

There's a vending machine in 43, second floor.
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