Material Innovations

Big Town Sandwich

On the topic of obesity in America, here are a few observations from an outsider from the East.  I am shocked at the size of your portions which are way too large.  Even half of a half sandwich is so big, I can’t finish it and have to throw the rest away.  I ate a sandwich from Big Town Hero yesterday.  I ordered the half sandwich (8″), which was no less than twelve inches.  There was the full-sized sandwich listed as twelve inches – how big is that one in reality, eighteen inches?  I couldn’t finish the “half” sized eight inch item.  Sure, I could have taken the remains home and stored them in the refrigerator; but how appetizing is a day-old sandwich with soggy bread and limp lettuce?  I felt forced to throw the rest away.
At a restaurant, even when I think food is a small portion on the menu, it comes as SO MUCH.  Why don’t they print quantities on the menus here like in Belarus where the menus specify weight or volume of items?  But it’s not just the quantity of food that seem problematic.  Besides portions being too big here, the content of the food is not nutritious, there are too many modified ingredients, too much corn syrup, and too many chemicals.  This is the difference between obesity in Eastern Europe and obesity in the West – in Belarus, people who eat too much are eating too much real and natural food so in spite of their large appearance, they still look somewhat healthy, unlike the obese population here which eats too much junk and has health problems way beyond just obesity (if that’s not enough of a problem on its own).

Though there is a larger diversity of foods here which look more visually appealing, their ripeness is questionable.  Why is it common here to use nitrogen gas to artificially accelerate ripening when nature has that process refined to perfection already?  As a result of artificial ripening which doesn’t allow sugars and other compounds to form properly the taste is flat and the nutritional content questionable.  In a related example, the meat looks SUPER red (I’ve never seen meat so red) but when you open the package, inside the meat is grey and lifeless.  What’s that about?

Village House and Garden - Illustration by Mo Morales

Where you Americans have useless lawns, Belorussians have gardens in which they grow their own staples (potatoes, carrots, beets, cabbage, etc) on their property if they live outside the city.  For city dwellers there are rent-free plots available outside the city which are serviced by buses provided at no charge.  Here, there is a farmer’s market one day here, another day there, but in the East there’s an open-style market in every micro-district, open everyday, and the inventory is in large part generated by the overages of common folk’s gardens.

We walk to the market in Belarus, we do it everyday or every other day.  It’s healthy to take a short walk each day for fresh food.  In America, the markets are centralized and so far apart, so I’m forced to buy food for a week which will sit in a refrigerator slowly losing flavor and freshness (decomposing) until consumed.  And getting that week’s amount of food is difficult, especially without a car.  The bus isn’t an attractive option since it creeps along, stopping at every block.  This may be a factor in why people are so overweight since no one walks more than one block here.  I heard that the regional transportation standard specifies a bus stop every 300 feet or something ridiculous like that.

I think you Americans should wake up and realize that the food you depend on is out of your control – a situation that is killing you.

American Diet

Dearest First World Inhabitants,
I was deeply disturbed to learn of the obesity epidemic in your country.  Here, in Indonesia, we struggle mostly with hunger and malnutrition, but are also experiencing our own bout with obesity as of late.

While doing some ethnographic research in your country I noticed that many people purchase and eat mostly foods that come in boxes.  Packaged foods seem to be compounding our struggles to maintain healthy weights in a small portion of our population as well.  I wonder if these foods have something to do with your obesity epidemic.

Further investigation into these packaged foods revealed some startling facts.  To be honest, I’d never heard of most of the ingredients found in your packaged foods.  Admittedly, I struggled to pronounce their names and few Americans could help me or tell me what they were either.  They also didn’t seem concerned with their lack of knowledge around food they were ingesting.  I made a note to look into this further when I returned to my office as it would require some secondary research.
It also seems that people avoid foods that come in their own natural packaging like fruit, vegetables, or fish, essential sources of nourishment in my country.  We have efficient and beautiful ways of presenting and transporting these foods to open-air markets.  See an example below of the visually striking circular presentation of our fish along with paper wrappers for sanitary selection at the market.

I did find some interesting facts about those ingredients I observed in your packaged foods.  According to your government’s Food and Drug Administration website many of them fall under the GRAS category.  GRAS stands for generally recognized as safe.   This is concerning to me.  You might want to inquire about the definition of ‘general’ as it is a term that is usually frowned upon in scientific study.  I also wonder how the FDA accounts for all the potential combinations of ingredients in various food products that can be ingested at the same time.

In order to lessen obesity I would suggest you stop eating these packaged food-like substances and instead purchase and consume foods that can decompose.  Might I also suggest more physical activity.  I saw many people circling a supermarket parking lot in their cars hoping to save a few steps before entering.  Many couldn’t even be bothered to return their carts to the designated cart corrals a few spots over in the parking lot.

Wishing You Improved Health,
Laura
Ethnographic Research Impostor- Indonesia

Hey everyone, guess what? America is FAT! Ok, so this isn’t breaking news, but facts are facts. Over 72 million people in the United States and 16% of U.S. children are obese.  And it’s crazy to think that $117 billion was spent on obesity-related health care costs in 2009.  More specifically, the most over-weight region in the United States is in the South, with Mississippi leading the way as the fattest state.

In one of my previous posts, I mentioned that I traveled to Morocco while I was studying abroad in Spain for my last semester in college. Geographically, I went to college in North Carolina, which is located right in the heart of the fat-land. Where I was in Morocco, I never saw anything that resembled a McDonald’s, Long John Silvers, or Golden Corral. Instead, Moroccan’s approach their food that is not so dissimilar to that of early America. Families eating home-cooked meals together!

Today, many parents in the United States are busier than ever and are making fewer home-cooked meals with their kids. Because of this, snacking is now a normalcy in between meals and on average we are now eating 31% more calories than we did 40 years ago. When I think back to my short time in Morocco, I imagine what a native Moroccan might think of me (as an American). They would probably assume that I eat McDonald’s everyday and would hardly understand the value of a home-cooked meal. This is because in Morocco, time is much slower. Meals are prepared with care and with family. Since most native Moroccan’s live with extended family members, there is a heritage to teaching the younger generations how to prepare savory meals. Many Moroccan’s consider it to be poor hospitality to take a guest to a restaurant. Instead they prefer home-cooked meal gatherings. Great cuisine is reserved for the home.

Most of the meals I encountered over in Morocco were various soups and multiple salads with a lot of couscous. What I learned when I was there was that many of the salad “dressings” were just the leftover juices from roasted veggies with some added spices. No Ranch, no Cesar, no Italian dressings in sight. Spices are used extensively to add flavor to main meals of beef, chicken, lamb or fish. Anytime I had meat in Morocco it was mixed in with a soup. Desserts were small and mainly local fruits and were generally served with small cups of sweet mint tea. This was in sharp contrast to the amount of sweet tea that is served to people in the United States, namely the south. Also the children in Morocco ate the same thing as the adults. Forget Happy Meals, fish sticks, and hot dogs, those kids ate the same thing as everyone else.

Overall I feel as though that we American’s spend too much time in the fast lane, which has made us lose touch with centering ourselves around the dinner table and preparing meals together. Unlike the earlier days in America, kids and teenagers today are generally less interested in cooking and making their own food.  Health and culinary education is lacking in the younger population and what I propose, as a possible solution, is not earth shattering. In fact, this is being done in other places. These are culinary walks/food trails. The basic premise is to understand food culture through walking (yay exercise!) tours of where food is being sourced and prepared. I think this would be more conducive in city areas, but who’s to say you can’t put your own spin on it and make it a neighborhood event. The goal is for people to become more educated about where (possibly) food is coming from and how it’s being prepared in the hopes that they can make better decisions about how to eat.

Mast Brothers Chocolate has created a stir not only in the world of artisanal foods and fine treats, but also in the creative realm where people are socially, ecologically, and highly craft-minded. Their small “factory” in Williamsburg, NY sources cocoa beans exclusively from small family farms and coops from various parts of the globe, including Madagascar, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, and Ecuador. The Masts, Rick and Matthew, currently rely on sustainable shipping practices for receiving their beans, though their next endeavor is to actually sail to the Dominican Republic to personally interact with the farmers and families behind the beans. The brothers (and their small staff) process the chocolate from bean to bar, all in-house.The bars are individually wrapped by hand, using simple foil and fine papers, and are sold either directly to the customer or through small, local markets in the Brooklyn area. The Mast Brothers seem to be doing chocolate the right way, whereas much of the industry is still guilty of some messy practices.

A phenomenal video: The Mast Brothers.

Compare this complete and traceable lifecycle with a bag of Nestle semi-sweet chocolate chips (a product I happen to buy an embarrassing amount of), or practically any generic candy bar:

Too much OIL and PLASTIC.

Any given bag contains cocoa from an untraceable source, which has been packed and shipped somewhere to be processed, then presumably shipped to another plant to be made into chocolate chips, then packaged in unrecyclable plastic, then shipped to a distributor, then shipped to a grocery store. The end of this lifecycle results in simply another piece of plastic that ends up in a landfill or the ocean (for sub-par chocolate and nasty practices along the way).

Some of the major movements working as catalysts to clean-up the filthy operations associated with cocoa production (child slave-labor, inadequate compensation, loss of biodiversity, deforestation of rain forests) are the various certification programs, including Fair-Trade, Organic, and Slave-Free. Those in the industry must meet certain requirements if they want to receive a stamp of approval from each of these organizations.

“Fair Trade certification ensures that cocoa farmers receive a fair price for their harvest, creates direct trade links between farmer-owned cooperatives and buyers, and provides access to affordable credit. On Fair Trade farms, slave labor is strictly prohibited and farms are inspected to ensure that Fair Trade standards are being met.”

“Organic foods are farmed without using synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, plant growth regulators, livestock feed, or genetically modified organisms. Instead, organic farmers use sustainable agricultural practices imitating those found in nature such as crop rotation, fertilizing with compost and recycled manure, biological pest control, and mechanical cultivation to maintain soil productivity and control pests. Certified organic foods are grown on farms that use organic and sustainable practices for typically a minimum of 3 years before receiving certification.

Obtaining certification for Slave-Free production of cocoa does not have it’s own separate qualifications, per se, but the farms must adhere to certain standards in order to be considered a slave-free environment.

+A short movie on “blood chocolate” and a brief reading on some of the big brand companies that have started moving towards cleaner practices.

+An exhaustive list of brands of chocolate products that are (mostly) organic and fair-trade.

+Kiss Chocolate Good-Bye: An article on unsustainable cocoa production and the need for better practices in order to become a sustainable and viable livelihood for cocoa farmers again.

+World Cocoa Foundation: A non-profit foundation which helps support responsible, sustainable practices in cocoa-farming around the globe.

+WorldWatch Institute: “Worldwatch focuses on the 21st-century challenges of climate change, resource degradation, population growth, and poverty by developing and disseminating solid data and innovative strategies for achieving a sustainable society.”

+From Coca to Cacao: An article on how many farmers in Peru have successfully been able to shift from farming coca (used to make cocaine) to cocoa beans.