Full-fat (natural) food

"Jayjay" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 8 Apr 2004 15:51:20 +0200, "Lictor"
wrote:
I'm sorry - NY and SanFran do NOT represent the majority of the US.
They certainly do not represent "typical" america.

Actually, NYC was already a lot better than SF. At least, buying quality
greens and meat was very easy there. Of course, things might be twisted by
the fact that I expect my next door supermarket to carry everything I need.
Maybe out of city supermarkets did carry what I needed.

And to counter that - I recently spent 3 weeks outside the US and
found that the grocery stores in the countries I visited had just as
many products that were "low fat" or "low carb" related as we do in
the US.

Oh, yes, we DO have all these now. Though at least weight watcher has just
launched a line that is low fat regular carb, instead of both being low...
The new trend also seems to be reasonnably reduced products, like yogourt
with +25% fruits and -20% sugar.
It's actually pretty interesting to watch people's baskets. Most mix diet
food like that and pâté, sausages, ham... It's like people (like me), who
drink diet coke along with their BigMac and kingsized French fries...

You obviously were not looking in the right places. Once again, our
stores carry a large variety. My mayo/mw jars I buy are the smaller
8oz jars. In the summers I will switch to a 16oz jar in order to make
salads (cole slaw or potatoe) that my husband enjoys on occasion.

.... converting to meaningfull metric units...
8oz would be medium size to me, 16oz is *large*!
Portions are still much larger in your country than here. I mean,
restaurants were impressive. I have always been a heavy eater, but the USA
is the only country in the world where I didn't manage to finish what I was
served at the restaurant. Yet, by looking at nearby people, I noticed some
actually managed. Even if I only took the main dish, finishing was not
possible. The plus side is that once I managed to get passed the shame
associated with asking for a doggy bag (huge cultural issue here) I managed
to make two meals out of a single visit to the restaurant. Or to take a
single meal for myself and my girlfriend (against, once I got past the shame
of asking that).

Yes, we do have alot of "bulk" items, and since we have things called
refridgerators and freezers, as well as cupboards for dry storage,
then we can purchase in larger quantities to store at home instead of
making daily trips to the grocery.

Errr... I do have all these things as well
It's just that there's no unlimited room in there. If I put gallons of stuff
that will last me for the next couple of years, it's eating up a lot of
room...

In my lifestyle we make a weekly trip to the grocery to pick up milk,
bread, lunch meats, and fresh meats and veggies. Otherwise, we tend
to go 3 to 4 weeks between grocery visits for picking the bulk of our
needs.

I used to do the same, though it's rather a weekly trip, and some visits in
between for some stuff. The fact that I have 4 supermarkets within 5 walking
minutes of home helps. The point is that even what you call a small jar of
ketchup or mayonnaise will last me months. Ice cream is not something I
stock up on, if I want to eat some, I just buy whatever I will eat. Noone
here would even see the point of having a whole bucket of ice cream taking
up valuable room in the freezer...

Most of our meats we even puchase and freeze, the only fresh meat I
tend to eat is the occasional steak.

I have begun to do this, though I still somehow find a better taste to fresh
meat.

So, unfortunately, IMO, you got a raw deal and a poor image of the US
when you were here.

Actually, not that poor, I was at least surprised at how easy it was to find
vegetables in NYC. I had read Americans complaining about how hard it was in
some cities.
But I'm still trying to explain how your country manages to achieve that
obesity level. I think the size of the servings and the obsession with diets
might be part of the answer. And the fact that these large packages, along
with bigger sized US fridges, imply that mostly everyone has a large supply
of food at home for bingeing.

On Thu, 8 Apr 2004 15:51:20 +0200, "Lictor"
wrote:

I mean, it took us days to
find some regular butter like we use home - not margarine, light butter,
easy to spread butter, omega-3 enriched butter, spread (how do they make
this thing?), just plain old butter (which tastes good if possible).

I simply don't believe this. I have been to a lot of places in the
U.S., and to San Francisco recently, and have NEVER been to a grocery
store where it was even hard to find the butter.

Are you sure you weren't shopping at 7-11 or something??

Stan

"Jayjay" wrote in message
...
But, we also found very large portions on our trip to NZ and AU
recently. Many times there, I would leave food behind to be thrown
out. Frankly, I was a bit surprised to find such similarities while
travelling abroad, because I expected different after all we hear and
see on the media.

Sorry, to sound harsh, but to most of the world, (Canada, USA, Autralia, New
Zealand) is some kind of single composite country with just little funny
differences in between I mean, language is the same, food is pretty
close, eating habits are close... Errr.. I hope my Canadian friend won't
read that, how she will make me suffer an horrifying death...

Anyhow - for many of us, yes, supersize is available, but that doesn't
mean we eat it. I choose to eat in my own portion range. But hey -
that's me, and that's why I'm not obese. :-)

But supersize still sets a kind of norm. If you are served a plate at a
restaurant, its size sets the norm of what is acceptable. The problem many
obese face is that they have their reference system completely messed up.
They have no idea of what hunger, satiety mean. Many actually do not know
any more what a normal human being eats. I'm not even speaking of the ones
who haven't eaten a normal meal for years (you know, sitting down, in a
plate instead of right from the pot, in a social context...). These people
will eat whatever is given to them, and there supersized servings really
don't really help. Their only limit is the total amount of food their
stomach can contain, and stomach is very elastic.
For myself, my norm was set by the servings at French restaurants, which are
not as small as some Americans seem to think, but definately not supersized.
So, the servings in the US seemed enormous to me (well, they actually are).
Now that I have tried to adjust myself, I tend to find that the servings in
the French restaurants have suddently grown bigger than my appetite. It
still feels slightly weird to have food left in my plate once I'm done.

In alt.support.diet Lictor wrote:

The truth is that you can even *taste* it. I mean, I spent my holidays near
a farm last spring, and the farmer was nice enough to give us free eggs.
OMG! This was like I had never tasted eggs in my life!

I agree!

I spent six years living on a farm, and was completely spoiled by the
fresh eggs I used to eat from there. They had about a dozen hens and
there is just nothing like those eggs! Supermarket eggs are *nothing*
compared to home-raised eggs! Same thing with the milk from the farm
next door (we often traded eggs for milk), the cream skimmed from the
top was incredible! The milk was beyond this world.

Going into the produce section of the supermarket these days and seeing
all the poor-quality veggies is sad compared to what I ate those 6 years
on the farm. Home grown cucumbers and zucchini were my favorite
vegetables. And we had fresh apples off the tree. Apples ripened right
on the tree are like nothing else.

amazing - in taste, texture, aroma... No wonder people eat so much when most
of the food has no taste...

I agree. Food simply isn't food anymore around here.
CM

Lictor wrote:

The fact that
it is becoming close to impossible to find real full fat butter with no
additives in many places in the US is a clear sign that something is getting
crazy about their diet.

I've lived in the US all of my life but a few trips. I do not recall
a single grocery store that did not stock regular butter, regular
vegitables, regular, and so on. Sure, plenty of space is dedicated
to junk food but that is different from thinking stores do not carry
real food.

It seems everyone is on margarine (yuck) or

Chuckle. I was raised on margarine because at the time people believed
it was better for health. The data turned out to be wrong but since I
had it as a child I prefer the flavor of margarine over butter. Shrug.
I use real butter anyways. It's fine. ;^)

"spread" (double-yuck) there

What IS it with "spread"? Velveeta is fake stuff so revolting it is
illegal to call it cheese. "Spread" is fake stuff so revolting it
is illegal to even call it margarine!

However, I'm not sure going full force in the opposite direction is the
right answer. Wisdom usually lies in moderation.

Moderation is not equality, though. The best solution is more like
95% natural foods and 5% fake foods than like 50-50.

"Jayjay" wrote in message
...
This bring somethign else up. In the US, it also depends on the type
and quality of restaurant you go to. Should you go to a French
restaurant - the higher quality have the smaller meals, more "gourmet"
type meals, but the lower quality French will serve you tons of food.

Actually, here, "lower quality" probably means traditionnal or real French
food. The kind you can find in famillies or traditionnal food restaurants
here. And yes, that is what used to be popular or peasant food, so its main
point is to feed you. Again, this seems to be some idea some Americans have
about French food that it's all about light food. Lousiana cooking evolved
partly from traditionnal French food, and it's not exactly lightweight food
The roux they use is a stepping stone of traditionnal French cooking
(except noone here would even think of buying powdered roux, it's a matter
of nationnal pride). Many traditionnal dishes involve stuff like beans
cooked in duck fat, sauerkraut cooked in lard fat, crêpe with plenty of
butter or vegetables with tons of olive oil. Not very lightweight (but still
healthy food).
High quality French food in the US often appears to be "nouvelle cuisine",
which is something most French will never actually eat, because it has a
kind of bad reputation here ("they serve you micro-meals that keeps you
hungry") and is not that trendy anymore and has evolved (latest trend would
be fusion food, like Asian-French or Indian-French). The funny part is that
"nouvelle cuisine" was very inspired by Californian cuisine, which also
evolved into fusion style.

The higher quality restaurant you go to, the smaller the portions tend
to be.

Well, they do know how hunger and satiety work. The more hungry you are, the
tastier the food will feel. Keeping you hungry throughout the meal is the
best way to make sure you taste it to its fullest.
If I go to a cheap traditionnal restaurant, I expect to get fed good stuff.
If I go to a very expensive restaurant, I expect to be surprised by exotic
tastes - and that works better if I'm hungry.

Now, I'm not talkign about your typical "steak house" as I have yet to
find one - no matter the price range, that actually has normal
portions. Hell - a 12oz porterhouse is not a single serving to me...
I'll take 1/4 of that, thank you.

Same experience here. I was also surprised by exotic restaurants. They tend
to have reasonnable portions here, but not so in the USA.

On Thu, 8 Apr 2004 19:24:16 +0200, "Lictor"
wrote:


But supersize still sets a kind of norm. If you are served a plate at a
restaurant, its size sets the norm of what is acceptable.

Here in Italy restaurants are starting to serve smaller sizes of food.
One serving in a plate is as big as a fist.
First of all, It is because people do not want to grow fat.
Secondly, because food is quite expensive, so people would not be glad
to be served food they can't finish, and still pay for it.

"Lictor" wrote:

Actually, NYC was already a lot better than SF. At least, buying
quality greens and meat was very easy there. Of course, things might
be twisted by the fact that I expect my next door supermarket to carry
everything I need. Maybe out of city supermarkets did carry what I
needed.

Can anybody imagine Martha screaming at this? Good thing she's out of
the country ;-)

--
Walking on . . .
Laurie in Maine
207/110 60 inches of attitude!
Start: 2/02 Maintained since 2/03

Lictor wrote:

The fact that it is becoming close to impossible
to find real full fat butter with no additives in many places
in the US is a clear sign that something is getting
crazy about their diet.

And have you noticed eggs? It's really hard to see
without a Radio Shack pocket microscope, but there's
a thin seam that goes all the way around the shell.
They're being made in factories now, no chickens
required. The yolks are colored yellow with
coal tar dye! :-)

On Fri, 09 Apr 2004 02:17:21 GMT, Mark Thorson
wrote:

Lictor wrote:

The fact that it is becoming close to impossible
to find real full fat butter with no additives in many places
in the US is a clear sign that something is getting
crazy about their diet.

And have you noticed eggs? It's really hard to see
without a Radio Shack pocket microscope, but there's
a thin seam that goes all the way around the shell.
They're being made in factories now, no chickens
required. The yolks are colored yellow with
coal tar dye! :-)

I prefer these eggs to the nasty things that come out of a chicken's
butt.

I really appreciate it when I crack them and they open into two
perfect halves, no worrying about little pieces of shell getting into
the food.

I used to have to strain the pieces of shell out of the eggs, and that
meant that I had to dirty the collander I usually wear on my head to
keep out the gamma rays.

Thanks for bringing this up.

Stan