food

There is a major food epidemic in the US. I have spent 7 days in this country in the past 10 years, (three days in 2006, and four days in 2009) and on both of these occasions I have found it pretty shocking, perhaps because it is just so different. It is not that just SOME people happen to be fat. Rather MANY people are huge, and (worse) it would be hard not to be, given the food available. I spend three days in Rochester, which is famous for its world class medical facilities. Yet the centre of the town has about 3 restaurants, as far as I could see. One of those was closed, another was a steak house whose only vegetarian dish was a greasy looking macaroni and cheese, and the final one was…..well, in the end I got mac and cheese there too…..on Sunday I order something which claims to be a “green salad side order.” It arrives with spinach leaves, sugar coated walnuts and tinned fruit bits in it, all smothered in a disgusting dressing. I couldn’t eat it. even a side dish of steamed potatoes proved inedible. the portions were large enough to feed three people my size, and cost less than half what the same dish would cost me in Europe. The wine generally seemed to come from cardboard boxes with little plastic nozzles, and was served with ICE CUBES! I had to show my ID every single time I asked for a drink, and no alcohol was for sale on Sundays.

On Monday I met up with Jared, an old classmate from Hungary who lives in Minneapolis, having moved there as his partner is on a post grad course at the university there. He has lived there less than two years and they will be moving to the West Coast next month. He is just completing a teacher training course, but claims if he doesn’t get a teaching job, he wants to work in food policy. Clearly I am not the only one who thinks there is a problem. He complained that buying fresh vegetables is seen as “elitist” or “snobby.” He is made to feel like a freak, or at least a not-one-of-us, every time he stocks up on greens in the supermarket. He is made to feel “self indulgent” or “foolish” for spending a large sum of his (lowish) income on his food and drink. Apparently that is seen as wasteful. More “prudent” people buy more cheaply- choosing quantity over quality. This results in lots of processed, refined stuff devoid of nutrients and stuffed with all sorts of weird things.

I have never been a food activist. I like to eat reasonably well, and I enjoy good food, but I have never thought too much about it. but looking at the average Midwesterner, I felt truly scared. I passed people who looked like walking time bombs. People who rode around in wheel chairs, not because they were handicapped, but because walking left them “out of breath.” I met a woman who was in fact confined to a wheel chair by necessity- her type two diabetes had led to the amputation of a leg!

On Sunday, my mother and I had wanted to have some wine. The restaurant didn’t serve it on Sunday. Neither did any shops. We decided to make it a mission to find alcohol, just to prove we can. We finally found a hotel (but not ours!) whose room service let us buy a bottle and take it with us back to our own hotel. On the 5 minute walk back, we noticed people staring at us and whispering nervously. Clearly the sight of two foreigners breaking the traditions unnerved them. But is drinking a glass of wine on a Sunday really worse than living on a diet of twinkies and starch? I suppose it is a matter of perspective, but I was clearly the odd one out in this case.