Super Size Me opened my eyes to the fact that a Big Mac meal should actually take care of my entire calorie intake for a day.  And I wasn’t even talking about the fat and sugar content.

However, once my eyes were open, I felt that I should and must practice personal responsibility.  For myself and for my children.  In terms of civil liberties, I would fight for McDonalds right to serve their fatty, possibly addictive, fattening foods to whoever likes to come between the golden arches.  By the same token, I would fight for my right not to eat it and not to feed it to my children.

Back to the Israeli campaign.  The Israeli campaign suggests the following:
Whole brown rice cakes with 3% cream cheese yields 157 calories per 100 grams.  Mac Royal (which I think maps to Big Mac in the US) yields 154 calories per 100 grams.
Whole brown rice cakes with 5% cream cheese yields 171 calories per 100 grams.  A Mac Royal meal with regular fries yields 185 calories per 100 grams.
It gives a few more examples, all on half page ads on the weekend edition of Yediot Aharonot, the largest newspaper in Israel.

According to the official Israeli McDonalds site, a Mac Royal alone yields 495 calories.  This number suggests that it weighs roughly 320 grams (154*3.2).  According to the official Israeli McDonalds site, a Double Mac Royal, Super Sized Fries, a Large Coke, and a Chocolate Ice Cream Sundae yields 1676 calories

Now, I took the time to seek out the calorie content of whole brown rice cakes (374 calories/100 gr), 3% cream cheese (81 calories per 100 grams), and 5% cream cheese (100 calories per 100 grams).  In addition, I found that a rice cake weighs roughly 8 grams (18 units per a 140 gram package).

Here’s how to get the true comparison.

In order to stay within the parameters McDonalds itself set in the advertising campaign, I would want to calculate how many rice cakes with how much cheese would I have to consume in order to get the 495 calories in the Mac Royal, and the 777 calories in the Mac Royal meal with regular fries.  You can find similar McDonalds nutrition data in many web sites, here’s one: McDonald’s USA Nutrition Facts for Popular Menu Items.

We could take a few routes.

Lets start with 200 grams of 3% cream cheese (162 calories) and about 12 rice cakes (336 calories) .  Or we could go with 200 grams of 5% cream cheese (200 calories) and 10.5 rice cakes (294 calories).

We could take the same route for the 777 calories found in the Mac Royal Meal with regular fries.
We could start with 500 grams of 3% cream cheese (405 calories) on top of about 13 rice cakes.  Or we could go with 500 grams of 5% cream cheese (500 calories) on top of 10 rice cakes.

Another example would be the Fruit Trix Cereal which offers 394 per 100 grams, and 3% fat milk, which offers 57 calories per 100 milliliter.  A box of Trix has 480 grams (a little over 1 lb).  Three quarters of a box of Trix (360 grams) yields 1418 calories.   One would have to eat that with a pint of milk to get to the Double Mac Royal, Super Sized Fries, a Large Coke, and a Chocolate Ice Cream Sundae calorie content.

Let me ask you a simple question: would you actually sit down to a meal of over a pound of cream cheese and 10 rice cakes?  Would you watch you child eat it without saying a word?  But let me top it off with the following: go figure how many containers of cream cheese (no matter 3% or 5%) and how many packs of rice cakes would you (or your teenager kid) need to eat in order to cover the 1676 calories found in a Double Mac Royal, Super Sized Fries, a Large Coke, and a Chocolate Ice Cream Sundae?

Anyhow, Thursday night, routine, everything seems to be in order.  Suddenly, I hear a yelp, a scream, and I see Guy, our seven year old son, hardly getting himself off the opened dishwasher.  His eyes showed panic, and he was holding his rear end.  I took off his pants and underwear, put him on the sofa on his stomach and what I saw made me say right away: “Dorit, pack whatever you think we need, we’re heading to the Emergency Room”.  I then added “he will need some stitches”.  What I was looking at is a 3 centimeters long gash, on one of his buttocks.

Guy was hysterical at first.  He wasn’t worried about the pain that much.  He was more worried about going to the hospital, and being stitched.  We gave him a pain killer for children and headed to the hospital.  The children ER directed us to the large ER, where a surgeon was already waiting for us.  One look at the gash, and the verdict was out: 2-3 stitches.  Guy became frantic.  He asked my if they were actually going to stitch him up.  I said yes, they must, otherwise, the cut will not heal.  And then frenzy changed into curiosity, and through the tears Guy asked: “you mean like clothes?”.  I laughed and said yes, like clothes, with a needle and thread.

Then he remembered the pain, and went back to whimpering.  I held him throughout our time in the Emergency.  The doctor, a very kind and professional one, prepared the sewing kit, and injected Guy with local anaesthesia.  Once Guy understood that no pain will be inflicted on him, he relaxed completely, and became fully curious.  He wanted to see what was going on.  I discouraged that successfully.  But I couldn’t look away.  The doctor was poking at the wound explaining to us that he wanted to make sure that the muscle was not penetrated.  Luckily, it wasn’t.  Three stitches later, and an anti-Tetanus injection to the upper hand muscle, we were ready to go.  We knew Guy was back when he went to the vending machine and asked for potato chips.  Guy was back.

We went back to the car and drove home.  Guy was exhausted, and frankly, so was I.  What a day.  What an end.

And when everything quieted down, I did what I do always.  Reflection.

Did we do anything wrong to help this home accident happen?  The answer was unequivocally no.  Dinner was over, the dishes were placed in the dishwasher.  It was opened shortly before, and it was opened with reason.  It was an accident.  Guy tripped and fell on it.  It could happen to anyone, and thankfully, gratefully, there was nobody to blame.

I always worry how should one know whether or not to go to seek medical help right away.  And the answer I came up with is as follows.  When you see it, you’d know right away.  Twice I had to take Guy to the ER, and in both times I knew right away it was the right thing to do.  The first time was Urticaria http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urticaria, a severe allergic reaction to some agent (still unknown).  The second one was on Thursday.  My advice: don’t rush to the ER.  But if your gut feeling tells you to be there, don’t hesitate.

The strong unexplainable (and obviously impossible) need of a parent to take the pain away from a suffering child is extremely strong.  The physical pain I experienced when Guy was in pain is also inexplicable.  The calm I presented while he was frantic, was a requirement by reality, but was very difficult to hold.

And lastly, the overwhelming sense of relief when it was over and Guy was safely sleeping in his bed, the tears that came streaming down my cheeks reliving the incident.  I understood.  This is part of life.  Kids will be kids.  They will get in trouble, and we, the parent, will get them out of trouble.  They will collect enough experience to stay out of trouble as they grow up, an enough experience to get their own children out of trouble when the times comes.

Parents, while it’s impossible to secure the house entirely against accidents, be cautious.  Children show amazing ingenuity when it comes to getting in trouble.  I keep telling my children to be careful every day.  I tell them that and I use a lot of prayer and hope…

When we surveyed the options, we looked at a “zimmer” – a room in German, which translates to a fully furnished room in a quiet place, surrounded with amazing scenery, panoramic views, wholesome people, candlelight lit hot tubs and dinners, really strange people with a strong relationships to the environment.  In short – this is the anti-city environment.

We chose Rosh Pina.  Various reasons.  The grandparents live in Cabri, a Kibbutz near Nahariya.  It was like a military operation.  We picked the kids from school.  They were packed already and so were we.  We drove to the Gramps and after thirty seconds of kisses and warnings, we hit the road.

We arrived at Molly’s Suite at 15:00 and at 15:05 Dorit already told me to change position so the snoring stops, and she could sleep too.  If it wasn’t for the stupid cat stumping on the next door neighbor’s door, we would have slept for the night.  But, when we woke up at 18:00, the hot tub – a two engine full size two adults hot tub – looked extremely inviting.  I lit a few candles, poured some liquid into the tub, and two minutes later, we were basically boiling our asses in water so hot, that adding some celery and potatoes would have taken care of dinner as well.

We emerged out of the hot tub, red, relaxed, tired, and starving.  We looked at the few brochures and found “Julian”, a bar – restaurant.  we got dressed and drove over.  A side comment: I eat a lot less than I look.  Dorit and I started to order for one lately.  It’s working pretty well for us.  House salad (excellent, although someone must explain the presence of the pears), creamy Broccoli soup (divine), an entrecôte steak done to perfection, with some strange (but outstanding) mashed potato and sweet potato, nailed it.  As I said, one diner only, amazingly reasonable price.  Julian of Rosh Pina – a definite yes.

Back to the “Zimmer”.  Good night sleep.  Excellent mattress, complete silence, no interruptions.

Amazingly, in nine hours, we were able to achieve an afternoon siesta, a hot tub experience, an outstanding dinner, some quality time together.  If you’re looking to get away, quick disappearance into nothingness, good time – I recommend Molly’s Suite in Rosh Pina.

Link: Molly’s Suit.  Call Molly at 054-4859592.  Just like her suite (zimmer), she is calm, accommodating, helpful.  If you want to get closer to someone close, you may want to consider Molly’s Suit…