Weight and American Food

[catscradle]

So now I'm thinking about weight and food and things like that.

Is American food designed to make us fat and keep us that way? I'm looking at all the foods in the grocery store and seeing that most of the kits and easy food prep stuff is some of the most fattening things you could possibly eat. So people with little time on their hands due to kids and job and what have you, have little choice but to grab these things and make food that's essenially really bad for them.

I stopped buying the kit stuff a while ago. I now just buy the ingredients to make my own meals from scratch - at least I can control how much of what goes into things. But I have to admit, on days I come home from work over heated and dog tired, I really don't feel like making a dinner.

Do other Americans feel this way?

Do those of you that live in other countries feel that you have healthy eating standards, or do you wonder about your foods too?

Comments

[moiradarling.livejournal.com]

I don't know if American food is designed to keep us fat so much as preservatives and other things that enable food to be pre-made and store-able contain a lot of complex fat molecules. It could also be the fact that the velocity with which food can be cooked is prized over nutritional value. That's sort of a cultural thing--it's not that the nuclear family is dead, but that it's not abnormal to eat on the go.

In Spain, for example, especially in Cataluna and Pasco Vais, mealtimes are a family affair. That means the preparation, like daily shopping trips for food and long hours spent cooking, is a really big deal. It *is* easier to eat healthy when you cook from scratch. I don't think that healthy eating standards are different from those in the U.S.--it's more how much the cultural emphasis on speed and efficiency allows one to follow those standards.

[zafiro-v.livejournal.com]

Well, we have a different way of eating. Many here don't have breakfast and have lunch. But here lunch is a complete meal, and when people are trying to lose weight they have something light for what you would call dinner...

There are also people who have breakfast with cereal and a light lunch and then dinner, but there are others who have fresh bread in the morning. We still have guys who ride along and sell fresh bread, or breadstores where you can go and buy it warm.

So basically we do think about eating healthy, and many of us do, but there are so many delicious things around that sometimes it's not easy.

[http://users.livejournal.com/ari_/]

well, it's not like the Austrian "national" food stuffs are that healthy (tons of meat...), and all these quick "Pasta" or "rice" dishes that take about 10 mins to make are quite unhealthy.

The main difference I've seen between America and here (mind you, I've only been to the US twice...) is that all your fruit stuff is pretty much horrible (everything is huge and tasteless), and you have, like, *no* bread, except for the white kind. And you have snack food and sweets and ice-cream in mega-huge containers (some of the ice-cream containers were frightening).

(not to mention that US chocholate tastes really horrible)

But, like I said, my exposure to US food was con-centric, and I have only visited 2 supermarkets. And there's probably a difference in available food between big cities and the countryside.

Still, the whole fast-food thing is just more popular in the US.

[catscradle.livejournal.com]

*g* Actually, we have a pretty wide variety in bread - you can get any style imaginable at most moderate to large sized grocery stores that also have a bakery (which is most of them). We even have a few large chains dedicated to nothing but breads in addition to the smaller Mom&Pop places. I don't think I've bought white bread in about 3 years. I hate the stuff.

Fruit and veggies really do depend on where you go - I know I'll not go to certain stores to get them - I'll go to the smaller groceries that buy from either organic farmers or at least small farms rather than industrial ones. But they're not hard to find if you know the area well.

I'll agree with you that Hersey's and Mars are pretty bad - but our independant chocolate shops are completely different. Chocolate seems to be one of those things that's done REAL well on a small market basis here - and REAL bad on a large market basis. Go figure.

I don't know where you were when you went grocery shopping - but the places sound rather generic and more of a convenience store variety than a grocery market. Or maybe you stayed in a more WASPy neighborhood (aka The Whitebread Prostestant regions). One cool thing about the US is that there are a billion ethnicities here and you can find every food available provided you haven't landed smack dab in the middle of the upper middle class Protestant areas.