Text 3852, 113 rader
Skriven 2008-03-15 15:41:00 av JIM WELLER (1:123/140)
Ärende: Another food rant
=========================
Not my own words, but this pretty well lines up with how I feel
about the subject: from Michael Ruhlman's blog at ruhlman.com

America's Fat Problem

A recent report suggesting sugar substitutes can lead to weight
gain, a report this summer that diet foods can make us fat, and now
today's Chicago Trib article about how diet crazes shape our
grocery shelves but fail to change our habits, fills me once again 
with astonishment.  It would be funny if it weren't so pathetic.

We have a serious fat problem in America.  It has nothing to do with
our obesity problem.  We also have a salt problem, and it's not
about hypertension.  Fat and salt are the leading bugaboos in
America's on-going national diet program, the wrench in the spokes
of our quest for good nutrition, the evil forces which, in our
fearful helpless craving for them, prevent Americans from achieving
their whole-grain, high-fiber, all-natural, Rocky Mountain health.
And what can we do about it?

Eat more fat!  Salt your food naturally.

Americans have a hopelessly neurotic relationship with what they
consume, of this there's little disagreement, a neurosis that's
built into our culture from the broadest levels of agriculture and
government, which demand that we subsidize farmers to grow crops you
can't eat without industrial processing, all the way down to our
grocery store shelves, which are packed with confusing, marketing
spun messages about what's good for us and what's not. Snackwells,
for instance.  Who's the clever executive who came up with that
name?  Want a healthy snack?  Try buying ... Snackwells! Are
Americans stupid enough to buy that?  You bet!

Just about every box and bag on the grocery store shelves has some
kind of "low fat" version, sometimes even if the real version
doesn't require fat in the first place.  On a recent flight, I was
handed a Quaker Oats Granola Bar; granola, it's good for you, and
it's low fat.  Granola doesn't need much fat, if any, in the
first place; but it does need sugar and you can bet that's the
reason my Quaker Oats "low fat" granola bar was every bit as
sweet and chewy as a Milky Way bar.  And on the previous flight, the
first ingredient in the blueberry muffin I'd been given was sugar,
not flour.

The sad fact is that fresh food that is good for you is
significantly more expensive than the processed crap that truly is
bad for our diet, not to mention our food production system.  And
the people who most need food to be healthy are the ones who can
least afford it.  The millions of Americans on a restricted food
budget will see little choice other than to buy the cheap calories
provided by agribusiness corn.

What drives me crazy though is the American cook and the American
consumer, who truly do care about food and cooking, but are
continually mislead, largely by an uninformed media and unchecked
marketing, notably with two of the most fundamental components of
cooking - salt and fat.

I say unto you: Fat is good!  Fat is necessary.  Ask any chef.  Fat
does not make you fat, eating too much makes you fat!  We aren't
filling our bodies with sodium because of the box of kosher salt we
use to season our food, we're doing it with all the processed food
that's loaded with hidden salt.  And American cooks and American
diners need to understand the differences.

I hope it's obvious that a diet composed of vast quantities of
saturated animal fats is not good for anyone.  This kind of fat has
been linked to elevated blood-cholesteral and heart disease; people
who have issues with these problems need to be cautious.  And some
people have serious issues with hypertension and high-blood
pressure; salt will exacerbate these.

But most people don't have these problems, and for them, fat is
not bad, not evil, not dangerous.  It's a pleasure in the right
quantities and we shouldn't be made to fear it.  If you eat
natural foods, plenty of vegetables, and avoid foods that come in a
box or bag or is in some way processed, food that's often loaded
with salt, you should be able to salt your food to pleasing levels.
Food needs to be seasoned for the best flavor.

As ever the French can teach us about a healthy relationship with
food. American's scratch their heads over the so-called French
Paradox - how can the French eat all that rich fatty food and have
lower levels of heart disease and associated problems.  I'll bet
their red wine does help, as has been suggested, but what is more
likely the case, in my opinion, is that the French eat more natural
foods than Americans, and they eat it in appropriate quantities.
That, I would bet money, is the root of their ability to eat a
heavily salted duck confit, dripping with duck fat, and not have a
problem with it, to luxuriate in Epoisse and Reblochon.  They can do
this precisely because they don't eat "low-fat" granola bars
and blueberry muffins that have more sugar than flour and eggs.

The French paradox. It can't be their diet, given all that evil
stuff they eat. Must be that red wine they drink!  Can we really be
so stupid?  You bet! Americans need to be better educated about the
food they eat, what's truly good, what's harmful, quantities
that are necessary, and super-sizes we don't need. Until we find
out for ourselves from reliable sources the answers to these 
questions, instead of relying on knee-jerk media alarmism and
marketing hooey, we're not going to eat the food that both
satisfies our souls and our bodies, and will perpetuate our fat and
salt dysfunction.


Cheers

YK Jim


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