People love to express their gratitude for a favorite tool or gadget by claiming that it's worth its weight in gold, a reference which is lost on most of us who don't know how much a pound of gold is actually worth. Thankfully Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories has cooked up a handy reference guide to help you measure the monetary density of things. This graphical comparison covers the weight value of U.S. currency, human blood, commodities, illicit drugs and pretty much everything else in between.

I'm still trying to take all this information in and it cracks me up how much a pound of many of these items are worth. Still, I noticed that a few items are noticeably absent from this lineup so I took the liberty of translating these into units to further expand your weight to value ratios.

• Gasoline - $1.79 / lb locally, a gallon of gas weighs 6.15 pounds.
  
• Crude oil - 39 cents / lb as of today, a gallon of crude is ~7 lbs, a barrel of oil contains 42 gallons at $118.35
  
• Quarter Pounder with cheese - $18 / lb, assuming 1/4 lb weight of burger and bun post cooking.
• With gold trading around $830 per ounce, and 16 ounces in a pound, a pound of gold is worth $13,280.

With energy prices coming across that low in pounds I wouldn't be too shocked to see pumps switching over to per pound pricing in the near future! In a more practical sense, I'm sure list will prove to be worth its weight in quarters when you turn a quick profit this weekend, betting some poor chump that a pound of peacock feathers is worth more than a pound of Uranium!

The New York Times reports that strapped consumers and tightfisted insurance companies are making weight-loss camps for plump children increasingly out of reach this year.

Given that 32% of American kids are overweight or obese, this is a major health crisis that will have great repercussions down the road. Any stumbling blocks placed before parents and children looking to confront childhood obesity are a serious problem for everyone, because of the huge health care costs associated with obesity.

But as public health problems go, the lack of affordable weight-loss camps for kids is a pretty lame one. To begin with, it may not be the most effective way for kids to lose weight.

To wit: a Stanford University School of Medicine study found that 64 percent of children with obese parents became overweight, compared with 16 percent
of children with normal-weight parents.

A month ago, on a trip to Arizona with my newly college-graduated son, I noticed the rear aspect of myself in the reflection of a store window. When had THAT arrived? As if I didn't know. It had arrived over the winter when in a fit of "poor me without a husband" depression, I had tossed the gym and then pilates overboard. I looked, I had to admit with a shudder, like an old lady.

"I wish I had the figure that I had last summer," I allowed myself to say, although, of course, mothers are not supposed to say such things to their sons. My son promptly manifested how well he had been raised by his reply.

"You will, Mom," he said.

Having tried a few diets, it seems logical to me that, the more repulsive and flavorless one's food is, the less likely one is to actually eat a lot of it. In that context, I can completely understand why cabbage diets, kasha diets, grapefruit diets and the like are so successful: after a few days of eating cabbage stew, starvation seems like a reasonably pleasant alternative.

Recently, however, a Chicago scientist made the bold assertion that foods with clearer, stronger flavors signal consumption to the brain more clearly. As the brain processes the amount of food that someone eats, it decides when to release feelings of fullness. With stronger flavors, those feelings are released more quickly. Consequently, when one eats more flavorful food, one eats less, buys less, loses weight, and generally all is well with the world.

To test his hypothesis, Dr. Alan Hirsch used what he calls "tastant crystals," which are calorie-free sweet and savory flavorings that can be sprinkled atop foods. In a study of 1,436 subjects, Hirsh claims that the crystals led to an average 15% weight loss over a period of six months. A control group of 100 subjects lost less than a tenth as much weight.

Dr. Hirsch's "tastant crystals" aren't on the market yet, but this ever-so-much-more-so approach to weight loss is interesting. In the meantime, I'm keeping a heavy hand on the balsamic vinegar!

Bruce Watson is a freelance writer, blogger, and all-around cheapskate. He's got another word for Dr. Hirsch's magic crystals. It's called "seasonings."

People complain that being out of shape is driving them crazy, and a new study shows that it might be making them demented too.

A study published in Neurology found that adults who carry excess belly fat in middle age -- even when they are considered to be of normal weight overall -- are more likely to suffer from dementia in later years. Researchers examined the belly size of 6,583 people between 1964 and 1973 and then looked into whether they were suffering from dementia an average of more than 35 years later.

One of the doctors who worked on the study told (subscription required) the Wall Street Journal that "It's really a red flag for all of us boomers. Waist size may not be reflective of just your heart health, but your brain function decades later."

So there you go: another possible reason to stay (or get) in shape. Needless to say, the costs of later-life care rise substantially when suffering from dementia. In addition, if your mental faculties aren't there, managing your money becomes difficult, and you become dependent on the counsel and integrity of a financial adviser -- never a good position to be in. You'll also tend to be more susceptible to schemes and charlatans.

This is one of those stories that's so crazy I didn't believe it until I found the bill on the official website for the Mississippi state legislature. Here it is, straight from the horse's mouth:

AN ACT TO PROHIBIT CERTAIN FOOD ESTABLISHMENTS FROM SERVING FOOD TO ANY PERSON WHO IS OBESE, BASED ON CRITERIA PRESCRIBED BY THE STATE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH; TO DIRECT THE DEPARTMENT TO PREPARE WRITTEN MATERIALS THAT DESCRIBE AND EXPLAIN THE CRITERIA FOR DETERMINING WHETHER A PERSON IS OBESE AND TO PROVIDE THOSE MATERIALS TO THE FOOD ESTABLISHMENTS; TO DIRECT THE DEPARTMENT TO MONITOR THE FOOD ESTABLISHMENTS FOR COMPLIANCE WITH THE PROVISIONS OF THIS ACT; AND FOR RELATED PURPOSES.

That's right: Republicans W. T. Mayhall, Jr. and John Read, and Democrat Bobby Shows have introduced a bill that would make it illegal for restaurants to serve food to obese people.

The bill would let the health department revoke the license of any restaurant caught serving food to obese people.

Of course, I have to think the bill has literally no chance of passing -- It's so obviously ridiculous that it isn't worth commenting on. but if it were to pass, Mississippi restaurateurs would be in trouble: it's the fattest state in the union with an obesity rate pegged at around 30%.

And that 30% is probably responsible for 60% of restaurant revenues.