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Eating Like THE King: Elvis Presley; Food Legends & Folklore

Rrose Selavy said:
Wasn't Elvis fond of Squirrel jelly?
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squirrel jelly? sounds like a UL. aren't jellies usually made of fruit? i don't think squirrels have a high enough pectin content for the jelly to set. :)
 
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UL? Well you get gelatine from meat. So I guess it is possible.
 
I saw a programme on Elvis' eating habits a few years ago, and along with the expected fried peanut butter, jam and banana sandwiches the documentary went back to the start of his life and cooked a squirrel, which they said he used to eat when he was poor and non-famous. Jelly wasn't mentioned, but Elvis did eat squirrels.
 
Trying to discover the truth of a quote on outlandish numbers that mention Elvis consuming a literally gut busting 65,000 calories a day (the average male is recommended to consume no more than 2500 a day) I came across little solid info just this:

As described in the UK Sunday Times, 24th December, 1995, page 3 article, "Revealed: the Elvis Presley killer diet", a forthcoming British special on Elvis Presley's eating habits, titled "Arena", details the Presley diet.
The Elvis Diet:

Breakfast (5 pm) - 5,000 calories

six large eggs cooked in butter with extra salt, 1lb of bacon, half a pound of sausages, 12 buttermilk biscuits

Dinner (10p) - 84,000 calories

Two "Fool's Gold" sandwiches [a jar of peanut butter, a jar of strawberry jam, one pound of crisp-fried bacon on a baguette x2]

Supper (4a) - 5,000 calories

5 double-hamburgers and deep-fried peanut butter, mashed banana sandwiches.

Misc. - other snacks as required between meals

Elvis total dietary intake in calories averaged a minimum of 94,000 *per day*. The article highlights that an adult Asian elephant (many tons in weight) has a normal diet of 50,000 calories per day. The article quotes a spokesman for the British Nutrition Foundation as saying, "I do not know how he did it... The Elvis diet would fuel a normal man for a month." The article continues, "Eventually this condition [consuming 94,000 calories worth of food per day] contributed to his death -- caused, as Graceland has it, by a heart attack or, as the coroner describes it in Arena, 'a terminal event on the commode'."
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Source

Now I understood the commode story had been debunked so is the rest of this hokem as well?
 
94,000 calories?? As the article says that's more than an elephant requires, I know Elvis was quite lardy when he pegged it but that seems too high to me.

There was a program on the TV a while back about some bloke that weighed 70-stone or something obscene like that and he was only consuming about 70,000 calories a week.
 
The documentary was called "The Burger and the King" and was very good. It told his life story through the food he ate, starting off with his dirt poor childhood, where they would hunt, and then fry squirrels (bones and all!). The golden nugget sandwich wasn't one that he had regularly, as, if my memory serves me, it was produced by a sandwich shop in Washington, though he would on occasion, get his pilot to fly him there just for the sandwich.
I don't think that the documentary is commercially available, but it is sometimes shown on BBC4 (if you're in the U.K that is.).
 
That sounds similar to a doumentary aired in the UK some time ago. I wonder if it's the same one?
 
Maybe Elvis had the metabolism of a bumble bee?
 
I think that lunchtime calorie count has gained an extra zero, and that it's 8,400 calories...which is still extremely high but not ludicrous.

Compare it with the other meals, there's no possible way that dinner has 36 times the calories of breakfast or supper.

I can't get the figures above around 20,000 calories, even assuming big jars.

Here's a truly horrific sandwich with around 29000 calories but it contain a lot more food. Mi in a Sandwich

Food Calories
Fried Mushrooms – 15 450
Bacon – 14 pieces 990
Onion rings – 18 1140
Ground Beef – 1/4 lb. 293
Corndogs – 2 540
Swiss Cheese – 4 slices 425
Provolone Cheese – 4 slices 397
Cheddar Cheese – 4 slices 455
Sliced Ham – 1/4 lb. 184
Sliced Turkey – 1/4 lb. 181
Pastrami – 1/4 lb. 394
Sliced Roast Beef – 1/4 lb. 200
Bratwurst – 1 510
Braunschweiger – 1/4 lb. 580
Wheat Bread – 1 lb. 1030
Lettuce – 1/2 head 25 (a bit healthy that is)
Feta Cheese – 4 oz. 350
Italian Salad Dressing – 6 oz. 480
Oregeno – 50 grams 438
Salt & Pepper – 50 grams 0
Butter – 1/2 lb. 1600
Parmesan Cheese – 100 grams 465
Canola Oil – 154 Tbsp. 18,432
Total 29,559
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Timble2 said:
I can't get the figures above around 20,000 calories, even assuming big jars.
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Even a whole jar of peanut butter is only around 3000 calories so I think you hit the nail on the head.
 
Plus, two-thirds of the calories in that sandwich are the (near as dammit) half a litre of corn oil. Which I can't believe all ended up in the sandwich anyway (there would have a been a LOT of that left over, post-frying.)

If, being generous, half of the oil ended up in the sandwich, that would bring the calories down to about 20,000 immediately. Which is still bloody impressive, mind :D!
 
drbastard said:
I can't see how 50g oregano can be 438 calories. :?
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I make it about 155 calories according to an online calorie counter......
 
I've never claimed to be all that healthy an eater, but even at my very worse - say a tub of sour cream devoured with potato chips, more sour cream on baked potatoes, two or three Dagwood sandwiches (ham, turkey, roast beef, swiss and cheddar cheeses, tomatoes, pickles, condiments), baked beans, half a can of halvah, vanilla ice cream with nuts and chocolate syrup - I never topped 5000 - 6000 calories. And that was NOT, trust me, an everyday occurrence. Moreover, after a meal or two such as that I wouldn't eat at all the next day and maybe not even the day following.

So I don't believe Presley COULD eat 50,000- plus calories at day.

If we simply make up and publish any factoid - "Charles Fort lived on only 375 calories a day," "Actor James Stewart was President Harry S. Truman's first cousin," "Spanish newspapers are forbidden by law from publishing comic strips," take yer pick, somebody's going to believe it and further circulate it.
 
I read somewhere that it takes about 6,000 calories to put on a pound in weight, so Elvis would be putting on 15 pounds a day if the calorific values were right. Sounds very fishy to me.
 
Well, considering the gargantuan input of food, Elvis should've been a lot fatter than he was.
So, I can only conclude that his hip-wigglin' stage routine must have kept his metabolism running fast.
As a result of this revelation, I had thought about devising an Elvis diet and exercise regime... 8)
 
Mythopoeika said:
Well, considering the gargantuan input of food, Elvis should've been a lot fatter than he was.
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Well he was also on a cocktail of drugs :

his personal physician Dr George Constantine Nichopoulos (usually referred to as "Dr Nick") had prescribed 10,000 hits of amphetamines, barbiturates, narcotics, tranquilizers, sleeping pills, laxatives, and hormones.
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Source

Presumably the speed and laxatives would have kept his weight down?
 
He wasn't exactly svelte in his final years, even with the drugs.
 
I'm no expert, but I'd hazzard a guess that the amount of food required to reach 94,000 cals. would be enough to rupture your intestines or such like. It must be physically impossible to eat that much food in say, a sixteen hour period? Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
 
Actually, it's 3500 calories to put on a pound of weight.

What would your gall bladder, liver, etc. be doing while all this is going on? Could they even cope with that amount of food? (can you damage your kidneys with too much protein?)

Just as a comparison, a horse needs about 15,000-25,000 calories per day, depending on age, size, activity level, health, etc., and horses (ideally) eat all day, even though most of what they eat isn't particularly nutrient-dense.
 
Since we're all aware that Presley ate far too much and very unwisely, that 65,000 calory a day diet might make sense if we knock off one of the zeroes.

Since I've occasionally (very, very, very occasionally) consumed 6,000 calories in a single day (and not eaten for a day or even two following) I can see Presley consuming a like amount day after day after day.
 
OldTimeRadio said:
Since we're all aware that Presley ate far too much and very unwisely, that 65,000 calory a day diet might make sense if we knock off one of the zeroes.
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That seems feasable, as mentioned at the beginning of the thread even the 'heart-attack' sandwich in the token menu seems to have gained a couple of zeros, going from a possible (if still eye-watering) 8000 calories up to an extremely unlikely 80,000.

If you factor in his usage of laxatives, plus the speed which would increase his metabalism, 6500 calories starts to look the more likely figure.

Thankyou very much, mama.
 
The young Elvis Presley was strictly poor folks and he probably went to bed hungry a lot.

Thus the ability to eat as much as he wanted whenever he wanted likely did him in.
 
It didn't really seem to catch up with him until his late 30s; I guess he was about 34 when he made the Comeback Special and he still looked...phwaoarrrrr. :oops:
 
I note that his mother died young (she had kidney probs); and she 'swelled' mightily before the end. Now, say Elvis didn't have exactly the same probs, a serious intake of food and drugs may have (ahem, ahem ahem) overloaded his system and caused a similar problem. Trying to do some of the maths, I think it is possible (on a one off occasion) to exceed 20, 000K; but not everyday. I agree with the above estimates (based on some of my work with overweight people) of about 8000k per day. I worked with one guy who had got up to 26/27 stone; he was on about 8000 a day. The amount of food he was eating was frightening (a seemingly near endless stream of 'snacks', dinners, sub dinners and comfort food). I got him down to 17 stone.

As much as I love the Elvis myths, I can't believe 94000k per day either. Though it makes for a great cautionary tale :?

BTW. Nigella's modified Elvis Peanut butter and banana (when do you stop spelling this word?) is a naughty treat :D
 
GadaffiDuck said:
BTW. Nigella's modified Elvis Peanut butter and banana (when do you stop spelling this word?) is a naughty treat :D
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Nigella could treat me naughty anytime she likes......
 
No, Heck, the peanut butter and banana, you eat it...


:shock:


Oh FFS!
 
I'm no nutritionist, but I'll certainly echo the comments made above: the figures quoted here are way off.

Elvis was big and fat in his last years, but not some absurd sumo-master.

And how about all the martial arts?

Elvis with his karate teacher Khang Rhee 1974

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TCB, baby.
 
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