The battle of American food, part two
The exercise of supermarket shopping;
There is an article in today's Washington Post; Stretch your grocery dollars which contains solid suggestions on how a family of four can eat on $120 a week. While all I have to worry about are my two dogs, cat, and me, the ideas Sally Squires made in her piece are of note, even if I don't agree with all of them.
The url for this piece is http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/health/features/2007/stretch-grocery-dollars-061907/graphic.htmll in the August 14 Washington Post.
As a re-entry student at Chico State, for a while it became difficult for me to navigate around campus after my stroke. The next fall was a test of just how much I would have to deal with. One of the items on my agenda was a basic nutrition class.
There were many explanations of how food interacted with the body, but while the professor and registered dietician set these ideas in motion, she pressed home the use of whole wheat bread, pasta, and a good explanation of food labels. While the common wheat bread claims to be good, since it is made from enriched wheat flour, it does not have the nutritional value God gave little green apples.
Bread and pasta made from whole wheat flour has much more nutritional value. Hence the common macaroni and cheese meal is out. Not only is the cheese component loaded with salt, but the pasta is next to valueless as a nutritional component.
While reviewing Squires' list and applying it against what i learned in class and in reading my food labels, I made note that she suggests whole wheat bread for toast and sandwiches, whole wheat tortillas, brown rice and tofu. Her pasta recommendations are generic, and margarine has too much salt for me to use it, and non-fat milk has too much of a yuck factor for me, but the list seems viable except that it requires a lot of cooking.
That is one place where health and American food part company. Supermarkets cater to the easy or pre-cooked food that seems to fit in today's high speed world. Walking through that bakery is like fending off temptresses. Exploring the middle of the store is more about convenience than health. Blowing by frozen foods is like tip-toeing through a minefield.
There is healthy food in the supermarket, but it is hidden. Trying to find sugar-free food has three complications, price, placement, and variety. When I find it, the price is usually higher than otherwise, where I find it requires a bloodhound to track it down, and what I find is often discouraging. Salt-free alternatives are even worse.
I feel like an afterthought looking for the food I need. Service people don't realize that they are condescending when they say they have sugar-free pie, when they are surrounded by product that could put me back in the hospital, and frequently does to so many Americans.
The human body was not designed to handle processed sugar and salt, especially in the quantities today's food contains. All it can do is store the stuff, as fat around the middle, or water in the ankles. Out of 300 million Americans, 100 million are overweight.
Convenience food, or comfort food, or friendly food – the stuff we were raised on – may get us through the day, but the prise is high blood pressure and high blood sugars, the stuff that puts us in the hospital, or in the grave.
My wife was insulin diabetic, overweight and had a number of health problems. She had a stroke in Maui, and died of a massive heart attack at the age of 51. She was a typical American.
There are two more segments to this battle, coming tomorrow and Thursday.