The battle of American food, part three
Eating in the field;
Once this fall semester starts at Chico State, I won't have the time or energy to shop at supermarkets or cook at home. That leaves restaurants, fast food and otherwise. There is a good trend in that I can find what many of the foods are made of.
I have the nutritional information from many of the major fast food restaurants bookmarked on my jump drive through Firefox. In looking up these sites, another site popped up run by three self-described geeks who wanted to eat smarter and couldn't find an adequate site so they set up The Daily Plate.
They keep track of nutritional information for many foods, including fast foods. When I looked up a Big Mac, this site said there is over 1,000 milligrams of sodium in one such. Add an order of large fries to that order and there is an additional 330 mgs of salt.
I had a college diner manager tell me once that fries without salt are sacrilegious, indicating how insidious this problem is. When I go to fast food and ask for fries without salt, this becomes a major production in that they have to fry a new order. The problem is equal for food without sugar. Most restaurants offer only diet cola unsweetened tea, or water.
In an article I wrote for the Chico State newspaper, The Orion, on the availability of sugar free alternatives, the common reason many of my sources gave for the lack of sugar free foods is that there is no market for such. That comes down to the yuck factor; most people I've talked to have the experience that sugar-free foods don't taste right to them.
Given the conditioning that I was raised with as far as food where refined sugar was everywhere, including table salt, and sodium is ladled into and onto most American meals, this state does not surprise me, but I find frustrating. There is so much I have to give up and do without that my cupboards are often close to bare.
I've developed one meal that works on a basic level here. By pouring two packets of sodium-free broth in a pot of water, adding stew meat cubes and fresh mushrooms, I bring all to a brisk boil. After it starts to boil, I pour in a container of whole wheat pasta, and cook the pasta al dente. With this as a basic meal, I can spice it to taste, or add other food as desired.
This is expensive, but it works. However it shows the extremes I have to go to to eat right. Tomorrow I bring this series to a conclusion.