Let’s Get American’s Cooking Again!
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.