Don't you think corporations (ie the people who run corporations) should take responsibility for their products and their actions. Why is only the little guy the problem? Shouldn't we ALL be responsible for what we do to others? Do you think Coke or any company has the right to do whatever they want because they have money and lawyers? It's easy to trample poor people.
Really cjhsa, if Coke was doing this in your neighborhood wouldn't you try and stop them?
The food for the family from Istanbul appealed to me.
The penguins lying dead on the table in Greenland made me sad.- and I'm pro hunting. Penguins will probably be extinct in the wild in less than 50 years based on current population declines.
I think I liked Sicily the best.
THere are striking differences in the amount of food consumed. Some families fit onto one table, others have their weekly food sprawled all over the kitchen.
Interesting stuff.
I was wondering if those were penguins, I couldn't decide.
One thing I noticed in different pictures were the tomatos.
Look at the Inuit family in Canada, their tomatos are just horrible, pale and I'm sure rock hard. While in other warmer lands they are red, red, red and inviting looking. I know they can't help it that they can get good maters, but it's a shame.
Their favorite foods....narwhal and polar bear. yikes.
To be fair, I notice it wasn't only the Americans who had pizza on their tables, it's just that the others versions were frozen or packaged.
There's nothing wrong with pizza....it's what we've done to it. Over the years more and more cheese has been piled on, and somehow people have got it into their heads it's got to have everything but the kitchen sick piled on it.
Growing up, we had pizza as a treat most weekends, on Sunday night. I'd guess they had about a third of the cheese as your "standard" pizza today and twice as much tomato sauce. They tasted a lot better than today with all that gunk on it. For 7 people we would get 3 pizzas. One plain, one with sausage, on with pepperoni. There'd always be leftovers.
Trader Joe's has excellent Italian Pizza (frozen) and not as big as
the American ones - less calories too, of course.
One thing I noticed was that the American tables have very little
produce and fruit, and fresh ingredients. Almost everything is packaged
for easy consumption.
I noticed the same about the Asian ones.
I think it would be fun to serve penguin at a formal affair.
I most enjoyed the Kuwaiti, Egyptian, Sicilian, Mexican, and Polish tableaux, re appealing for me, and then add Bhutan - that looked pretty interesting.
Off to look at parts II and III.
I just went over the pictures in Section 1, and made some notes.
I think it would be very interesting to do a cross reference graph of the amounts of various foods, and comparing it to our current beliefs on, let's say, weight gain.
In no particular order, and not covering every country....
Japan - I was very surprised at the amount of food they were eating that were in packages, processed foods. Yes, there was fruit & vegs, but not as much as I would have thought.
Sicily....well, well, well....look at all those carbs, most of which were processed to some extent....pounds of pasts, loaves and loaves of bread, much more than let's say the U.S.
But not a fat person in sight. Especially that father in the picture...what a hottie. The missing ingredient? Meat....Very little meat on their table.
Kuwait - Thin people, high carb, lots of rice, low meat.
U.S. Not so much the low amount of fruits and vegs, but who could eat them after filling up on all that meat and cheese. Also, yes there were cokes, like in other countries...but there was an awful lot of bottles of what looked like kids drinks, like fruit drinks.
Mongolia - as expected, high meat, low vegs....just doesn't grow there. I'd be interested to know if the people there have an altered digestive process.
Great Britain - Frankly, I didn't see it as all that different from the U.S., expect they did eat more produce....they too heavy on the processed foods, chips, sweets, pizzas.
German - They are very commendable on the amounts of produce they consume, which I'm sure is what is counteracting the beer, pizza and sausages.
What I take away from all this, is that carbs are NOT so much the issue, it's meats and fats.
Look at the family in Bhutan. On first glance it looks like they exist on a few vegetables. But, look at the 50 pound bag of rice. That make 150 pounds of cooked food...mixed with the variety of vegetables making a complete protein.
Chad...yes, I think by anyones standards they don't have enough to eat. But what they do have is beans and rice. Which are complimentary proteins, and both of which triple their volume upon cooking.
Conclusion...in most countries, we would do better health wise to eat like some of our poorer neighbors.
Part II also interesting...
off hand, I liked the food from the family in Todos Santos, Guatemala, and the family from Istanbul...
Great post Chai, btw, don't even look at China in part III (If you're eating)
Although i like Chinese food...this put me right off.
Chai wrote:I
What I take away from all this, is that carbs are NOT so much the issue, it's meats and fats.
I think it's the calories and activity. People in other places do not eat as much, and as often, as people in places that are having weight issues. Americans ate of a lot of meat in the 50's-60's and gave it up in the 80-90's only to become the fatest nation on earth. I think the quality of the food we eat and how often we eat it determines much of our weight.
Fat nations are also sedentary nations. I'm sure the majorty of these people do not have two cars per family (US is now 2.5 per family). People walk more, even if it's just to catch a bus or train.
Portion size is everything.
We Krauts eat a lot of sausages, pork, meat, potatoes and - well yes,
sauerkraut. All that is washed down with a few beers (oh the calories),
but a) the plate isn't loaded up to the max, and b) people walk a lot,
and prefer their bicycles over cars. Vacation tours on bicycles is a great hit there.
The Italians and French eat almost nothing at breakfast - only coffee, and
sometimes a croissant along with it. Lunch is small, either pasta or a
sandwich, and dinner is broken down into several courses and dragged out
for at least 2 hours, most often more. A bottle of wine goes along with it.
Dessert is very small, sometimes fruits only, or cheeses with fruits. That's
it!
No snacking inbetween and very little junk food.
Well, olden days italians ate their big meal early afternoon, and a lighter one at night, as I understand it. Don't trust me, of course. That has been changing over the years re changes in the work and the work force..
Meat used to be celebration time food - religious holidays, etc. - at least in the southern most 'mediterranean' area. And all that pasta or, in the north, rice - and bread - supported a lot of veggies at their best. Plus, fish has been important over the years, that is one long thinnish land that is sea surrounded... and fish has been mostly good for you.
Trust osso.
Modern day Italians and Spaniards also eat their main meal in the afternoon; in fact, the Italian and Spanish words for the afternoon meal are "pranzo" and "comida", which means meal in both languages (in Spanish it also means food).
The recent complaint in Italy is that "American style" hours set by some employers (mostly on services, not industry) make it difficult to enjoy a pranzo as it should be enjoyed. I don't know who will ultimately win the tug-of-war, but certainly it will last for several years.
Did anyone else notice that the Muslim woman in Dubai was using a cutting board with a picture of Santa Claus? There's some kind of irony in that...
oh, agreed cj....portion size is key.
I was also meaning in that my personal belief meat is supposed to be a small compliment to the meal.
correct on the snacking too.
I think people get so many mixed messages. Eat often, don't snack.
When I think of snacks, it's foods that have no nutrition anyway, chips, etc.
Also, I think the pendulum has swayed to this extreme in industrialized countries for all this intense, constant flavor, or searching for all these subtleties in a dish.
We've forgotten how to appreciate the simple taste of beans
Chai wrote:
We've forgotten how to appreciate the simple taste of beans
Are you sure you don't mean smell?
