Overeating in America

Adam and I have both gained weight since we came back to the United States, and it's had us thinking a lot about the kinds of food changes we've made since being Stateside.

We've realized especially that there is just a lot MORE food being offered per serving and meal in the US.

Even the plates seem larger, and as we browsed through Restrauant Depot and Costco with some friends last week, the problems with American obesity were literally heavy in my mind.

Yes, a lot of these items are for restaurants and caterers, but there were tons of families there as well, filling their carts with bags of frozen chicken wings and boxes of microwaveable pizzas.

This sort of heavy industry technology is not available in Uganda or Congo, and from my experiences in France and Italy is only marginally used there.

Even marketing in America seems to be pushing towards overeating.  Get MORE for your MONEY!  Eat MORE! BUY MORE! QUANTITY OVER QUALITY! Buy Tons of Food To Put in your ENORMOUS FREEZER!

Is capitalism making us fat?

I inadvertently got stranded at Taco Bell during fourth of July weekend and was sort of horrified not only by the stale sliminess of the food, but of how many parents and their kids came to eat there.

Are these really the kinds of eating values we want to instill in our children?

Plus, Taco Bell seems eager to have people move to four meals a day?

Yes, the best thing to be eating at 2am is out-of-a-can Mexican food.

Yuuuuummmmmm.

One of the biggest emphases of French Women Don't Get Fat is that our American portions are too large.   Even last night, while cooking dinner, we had bought 2 pounds total of salmon fresh at Citarella, one of our local fancy Harlem supermarkets.

We had 2 friends over for dinner last night, and Adam was sure that we didn't have enough fish!  Which is sort of crazy, because the French Lady recommends that you eat 4oz of fish each, and we had eight ounces each!

So we continue along, starting and stuttering and going forward nonetheless.  We made our own dinner last night, heading back to cooking, and today I made mozzarella and tomato grilled cheese sandwiches on the frying pan, using PAM.

Snacks today have been yogurt & honey, and thinking of making gazpacho for tonight!