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A professor said 6 chips at a time is enough. Twitter revolted

Updated / Wednesday, 5 Dec 2018 11:04
Chips hold a revered position in Irish culture
Chips hold a revered position in Irish culture

Bad news has come in for people who love chips – which we can safely assume is everyone on the planet.

Harvard professor Eric Rimm has called fries "starch bombs" and told the New York Times he recommends just six per serving.

As you can probably imagine, the sheer thought of eating just six measly chips is a horrifying one. When you’re going in on a portion of fries, you want it to be a big bowl of crunchy goodness – not just a few bites.

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Across the world, from the UK to the US and to Ireland, there’s a deeply held, almost reverent love of chips. They go with everything – steak, burgers, sandwiches, fish, heartbreak – all of it calls for fries.

Which is why Rimm saying "I think it would be nice if your meal came with a side salad and six French fries" has been met with such outrage on Twitter.

Before outright rejecting the professor’s suggestions, some Twitter users have tried bargaining with him. What does he really mean? What kind of chips might he be talking about?

A main point of contention is what constitutes a portion.

Once Twitter users were done with arguing, accusations started flying around.

And then, people went for the jugular and started attacking both Harvard and the Ivy League.

The furore got so intense that Rimm stepped in to defend himself, tweeting: "My suggestion to the NYTimes was that perhaps restaurants should offer a smaller portion size as a tantalizing option to satisfy those with a taste for fries but who don’t want the starch bomb."

In another response he tweets:

Rimm says he was surprised by the outcry, asking Vanity Fair: "Am I really a monster?"

Well, let’s look at the facts. Safe to say most of us are aware that there’s little nutritional value in chips – according to Fitbit, the average portion contains 137 calories and about 6% of sodium. This is for a serving suggestion of 10 chips sized between 5 – 9cm, and as we’ve learned from this Twitterstorm few people are able to stop at this kind of low number, so surely we’d end up consuming far more calories. In fact, a portion of medium McDonald’s fries contains 340 calories.

And yet that doesn’t stop us loving chips – there’s something about the warm, crunchy, saltiness of the side that is unparalleled. We can safely say if you publicly come for French fries a la Rimm, you’ll have a whole lot of negativity firing back at you – so proceed with caution.

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