The food, the fear, the facts

[snopes]

Americans are awfully messed up about food — so thinks Barry Glassner, USC sociology professor and author of "The Gospel of Food: Everything You Think You Know About Food Is Wrong." We imbue certain ingredients with an almost magical power to heal — when, that is, we're not fearing them as poisons we must strip from our diet.

http://www.latimes.com/features/heal...,4376207.story

[Pseudo_Croat]

So essentially, we must not fear food, but instead take pleasure in eating whatever we can and always search for new things? I can live with that.

I have to admit I got a chuckle at his comment about eating cereal with yogurt. I've taken to doing that when the milk runs out in my household.

- Pseudo "food fight" Croat

[llewtrah]

I use non-fat yoghurt on cereal and it tastes just fine.

These days, food isn't food. Food is a marketing opportunity - either for the food itself or for a "healthier alternative" to that foodstuff. Good quality food is expensive and crap food is cheap. People's diets get so unbalanced and people get unhealthy when they go for the cheapest alternative and consume excess calories while their bodies crave real nutrients.

We've lost the trade-off between food and the effort required to get that food. It used to take effort to get the things we crave (fats and sugars), now we just buy it at a supermarket and the only effort is loading it into the shopping trolley and then into the car.

We're offered so many confusing choices by competing producers we no longer know what to buy or eat.

Personally I've opted for minimum of processed or convenience food and I make almost all my meals from raw ingredients.

[tagurit]

Originally Posted by Pseudo_Croat

I have to admit I got a chuckle at his comment about eating cereal with yogurt. I've taken to doing that when the milk runs out in my household.

I do something very similar. I normally use whole milk in my coffee. If I run out of milk, I'll put some ice cream in my coffee.

tag whad'ya mean that's not the same at all? urit

[Spam & Cookies-mmm]

Originally Posted by tagurit

I do something very similar. I normally use whole milk in my coffee. If I run out of milk, I'll put some ice cream in my coffee.

tag whad'ya mean that's not the same at all? urit

That's totally the same thing, tag!

I've been known to substitute pancake syrup for sugar in my coffee as well. You do what you have to to get your fix, right?

[Spamamander]

What's truly awful is when I have to use actual sugar in my coffee instead of the potentially carcinogenic stuff in the little pink packets! The horror!!

[vison]

Food lovers and food fearers alike ought to read this charming and informative book: "Much Depends Upon Dinner" by the great Margaret Visser. This book is an eye-opener, and no mistake.

She sets a menu: begin with lettuce salad, dressed with olive oil and lemon juice; then go on to corn on the cob, rice, and roasted chicken; last, dessert of ice cream. Each food on the menu is discussed at length, in her wry, dry fashion, and it is a hoot to read and what's more, you learn lotsa interesting stuff. You will never look at any of these things in the same way again.

But, what is most interesting, to this reader at least, is the discussion of the politics around food, the perceptions and misperceptions. Very cool.

Originally Posted by Pseudo_Croat

I have to admit I got a chuckle at his comment about eating cereal with yogurt. I've taken to doing that when the milk runs out in my household.

I started doing that after a visit to Brazil where that seems to be the "standard" way to eat cereal.