How much cooler are the french than us?

Prompted by my friend Connie's comment on my Seattle post, I decided to investigate and give my opinion on why America has such a different relationship with food than the rest of the world.

One example that is often referred to is the "French Paradox": how the French seem to be able to eat very palatable foods and as a population have a low heart disease and obesity.

Sign me up!

Although this is accepted to be true, I think it would be unfair to say that Americans are the only ones dealing with poor eating habits and obesity. America seems to have exported a culture of processed food that is now reeking havoc on previously healthy populations.

When I was in Italy I noticed that there was just as much processed packaged food in their grocery stores as there were at ours, and Italians have really welcomed McDonald's into their lives.

YEAH MCITALY!

As a result, most European nations are becoming increasingly concerned with a higher presence of obesity in their populations. I have even heard news stories reporting that there is even concern in Asia over an increase in obesity, especially among children.

Not only are the processed foods that we eat on a regular basis making us unhealthy, they are taking the fun and social aspect of nutritious food out of our culture. A family that prepares a totally home cooked meal every night in present day America is somewhat of a rarity. I am sure that it is no coincidence that the faster we consume and the less we cook, the bigger and less healthy we become.

I am actually reading a book that is highly relative to this topic. It is called The End of Overeating by David A Kessler MD. In it he discusses how Americans have literally become addicted through our brain's reward system to highly palatable, highly processed combinations of salt fat and sugar that leave us in a very tricky situation. We fall victim to food scientists' (who lets face it, know more about what I like and why I like it than I do!) and large corperations' brilliant ways of making us literally addicted and conditioned over eaters, having unhealthy emotional attachment to food, and losing a relationship with REAL food.

Evil scientist knows you can't resit!

And believe me, I KNOW how hard this can be to resist and I am not always successful. Knowing that it's not all your fault is helpful, but I think we need to find ways to really fight the odds. It is hard to plan meals and cook everything you eat yourself. The sheer availability of food at any time of day from any selection of lovely chain restaurants and convenience stores make success sometimes seem impossible. But if you have to make the choice between spending an hour on Facebook at night, or making sure that you cook something healthy and satisfying for the next days lunch, I think we should make an effort to prioritize eating healthy and enjoying eating food that we can be proud of, with people we care about.

Calorie Counting, striking a balance

I initially lost some weight by calorie counting. Basically, I would track EVERYTHING I ate as well as logging all of my work-outs and calculating my deficit. It could be time consuming but I really didn't mind too much. The problem is that this isn't a truly realistic way to lose weight and keep the weight off. Now that I am in school again, it is really hard to continue to calorie count.

Eating clan when you are always on the run really is hard, and I keep making resolutions to do better every day, but then something happens to mess it up. So this week (Friday to Friday) I want to try to see how closely I can eat to my healthy calorie counting ways and still lose some weight (hopefully 1 pound) without calorie counting. Hopefully I will be able to post often to report how this goes. Also, I want to try to not eat even a gram of refined sugar if I can avoid it and see how I feel. I have tried to do this a few times but I always mess up. It's amazing how food can just sneak up on you like that. This is Especially true if I wait until I am really hungry to eat, which I will have to try to avoid this week.

Long overdue: A trip to the west coast

So I haven't posted for a while! I was in Seattle for a week and then school started right away so I have had to play catch up.

The reason I went to Seattle and Vancouver for a week is that I was going with my boyfriend to the American Cheese Society conference in Seattle (he is a cheesemaker). We went to Vancouver first for a day and took a bus tour down to Seattle see a few really cool farms!

One of the creameries we visited along the way

The ACS is a really great because they are pretty grassroots and are focused on promoting American artisinal foods. However the BEST thing about the ACS conference is allllll the great cheese everywhere for the entire conference.

My boyfriend Dan making cheese at Beecher's cheese at the Pike Place Market

The other thing that really struck me was the west coast attitude about food in general. Even the people behind the counter where I would get coffee or a sandwich would be so stoked on the great food that they were serving. Although being a "localvore" is now labeled as a somewhat shallow food trend, these people were so excited to be serving products they could be proud of.

Great turkey sandwich from the Seatown Snack Bar that the guy literally talked to me about for like 5 min.

Even when I went to a coffee bar, the girl who took my order talked to me about the cool espresso beans they had, and then I had the same exact conversation with the guy who actually made my drink. And they were both SO EXCITED about the coffee they were serving that day.

And it looks pretty great right?

Not that New Yorkers aren't more interested in food than they used to be (including myself), it was really cool to see this attitude that people have about food where it isn't just something you grab and go with as a matter of sustinance, but something that you can really enjoy and be proud of.

I hope that we see more of that here on the East coast, along with a focus on healthy and environmentally responsible foods that people are excited about, not just eating because they want to lose weight.