Fattening of America
When I was in California a few weeks ago, our trainer was Canadian. We started talking about portion sizes in Canada vs the US. He travels a lot, and said that by far American portions in restaurants are huge when compared to Canadian restaurants. He said that Australian portions are even tinier. I guess the large portions combined with the mind set that we have to clean our plates is a big contributing factor to the obesity rise in the US. Think of everyone you know. How many of them are overweight? How many of them are obese? How many of them are at or under weight.
I think lack of nutritional education. When I was going to school, I don't remember learning much about nutrition at all during science or health classes. Health class mainly consisted of our gym teacher trying to scare us about drugs and STD's. I'm not a drug addict and I don't have any diseases rotting my crotch, so I guess his message got across. So hopefully, schools nowadays are focusing a good portion (portion, get it) of their curriculum to educating kids about eating healthier.
Then this weekend I was reading about this list put together by Mens Health magazine about the 20 Worst Foods you should NEVER eat. I can't believe 1)some of these items are being sold and 2) that people actually order some of this stuff. But some of the items seemed kind of innocent, almost healthy. Like some of the drinks from Jamba Juice are 900 calories and have 10 grams of fat. A lot of people are under the impression that smoothies are healthy. And generally they are, but these damn chains find ways of making them taste better than the store next door, and they end up killing you in the process.
Quiznos makes a sandwich called the Classic Italian is a whopping 1500 calories, with 92 grams of fat and 4600 mg of sodium! Macroni Grill has a spaghetti and meatball meal that contains all the calories you should eat in an entire day!! 2,430 calories 128 g fat, 207 g carbs and 5,290 mg sodium!!! Geesh!!!
Mens Health has a portion in their magazine each month called Eat This Not That. They take an item like a cheeseburger from one chain/restaurant and offer a healthier alternative from another chain/restaurant. They are actually releasing a book in a few weeks on the same subject. A lot of times, it's hard to tell what's healthy and what's not. And sometimes doing something as simple as getting a sandwich without cheese and mayo can knock off several grams of fat.
One other thing that bothers me is that unhealthy food is so much cheaper than healthy food. I love Mama Celeste microwave pizzas. They are often on sale for $1 a piece. In comparison, I bought some Healthy Choice personal microwave pizzas and it was priced over $3.00. More than 3X's the price of the unhealthy Mama Celeste pizza which contains 4 grams of trans fat. Most shoppers (myself included) shop with their wallets and not with their brains, so of course more people are going to stock up on the pizzas that cost a dollar. How can it be that a healthier pizza costs so much more. I don't get why major brands don't have more choices of low cost, healthy foods. Probably because the unhealthy stuff sells so well.
I think lack of nutritional education. When I was going to school, I don't remember learning much about nutrition at all during science or health classes. Health class mainly consisted of our gym teacher trying to scare us about drugs and STD's. I'm not a drug addict and I don't have any diseases rotting my crotch, so I guess his message got across. So hopefully, schools nowadays are focusing a good portion (portion, get it) of their curriculum to educating kids about eating healthier.
Then this weekend I was reading about this list put together by Mens Health magazine about the 20 Worst Foods you should NEVER eat. I can't believe 1)some of these items are being sold and 2) that people actually order some of this stuff. But some of the items seemed kind of innocent, almost healthy. Like some of the drinks from Jamba Juice are 900 calories and have 10 grams of fat. A lot of people are under the impression that smoothies are healthy. And generally they are, but these damn chains find ways of making them taste better than the store next door, and they end up killing you in the process.
Quiznos makes a sandwich called the Classic Italian is a whopping 1500 calories, with 92 grams of fat and 4600 mg of sodium! Macroni Grill has a spaghetti and meatball meal that contains all the calories you should eat in an entire day!! 2,430 calories 128 g fat, 207 g carbs and 5,290 mg sodium!!! Geesh!!!
Mens Health has a portion in their magazine each month called Eat This Not That. They take an item like a cheeseburger from one chain/restaurant and offer a healthier alternative from another chain/restaurant. They are actually releasing a book in a few weeks on the same subject. A lot of times, it's hard to tell what's healthy and what's not. And sometimes doing something as simple as getting a sandwich without cheese and mayo can knock off several grams of fat.
One other thing that bothers me is that unhealthy food is so much cheaper than healthy food. I love Mama Celeste microwave pizzas. They are often on sale for $1 a piece. In comparison, I bought some Healthy Choice personal microwave pizzas and it was priced over $3.00. More than 3X's the price of the unhealthy Mama Celeste pizza which contains 4 grams of trans fat. Most shoppers (myself included) shop with their wallets and not with their brains, so of course more people are going to stock up on the pizzas that cost a dollar. How can it be that a healthier pizza costs so much more. I don't get why major brands don't have more choices of low cost, healthy foods. Probably because the unhealthy stuff sells so well.
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