If you’re a fellow American look around. Take a look at all of the people that you see each day eating that healthy lifestyle. They drink wheat grass shakes, which I personally know tastes like getting tackled during a game of backyard football. They may accept meat in their diet, but only 3 oz of flavorless chicken breast with a smidge of salt. And yet, we Americans are the fattest and most out of shape country in the world. Take a trip to France now. Watch as they stuff their faces with delicate artisanal breads, triple cream cheeses and use butter in food preparation the way your healthy friend uses organic foods to prove that their trying to get healthier. What you’ll find is that the French are thin and in shape as a general rule. They don’t have the myocardial infarctions at nearly the rate we Americans do.
Why is this? Why should it be that a country so hell bent on being healthy is instead finding itself mired in unappealing food that is giving no benefit? Oh, I don’t doubt that many of these “healthy” items are indeed good for you. What with their being packed with vitamins and minerals. But here’s the rub, so is all of that delicious food being forgotten at the grocery store. There are numerous reasons for this phenomenon. I blame marketing and the government for making us believe that something new is the reason we’re fat. For awhile you couldn’t eat eggs, but now they’re OK. And they’re only OK because a discredited doctor named Atkins told the world that it was carbohydrates that would kill and make you fat. Prior to that the government told the populace to stave off of nasty red meat, and for decades we did just that. Pork and chicken became the de facto meat choice at every family meal.
But most of all I blame you. I blame myself as well. We’re a society of fear. Baskets of bread sit sullenly waiting for us to come to our senses and bring back warm fresh baked bread to the dinner table. We’ve been told that carbohydrates are bad for us. Not only that, we believe this with a passion that is disconcerting. Today you can give someone dieting advice by telling them to avoid pasta and bread. I’ve done it. I’ve told my wife, mother, sister, friends, and strangers at the market that just cutting out some carbs will help them reach that 10 lbs loss goal. And that information I have no idea how I came by.
Nor do you. You may have read some books or a few articles. But did you ever stop to think that what you’re being fed is complete crap? The truth is that we don’t bother to learn what is true. We accept what we’re told because it is delivered in a way that is meant to frighten us. Fear controls a population far too efficiently as dictators throughout history have learned. We’re afraid to eat a piece of bread because everyone knows that carbohydrates turn into fat. Therefore we must never eat such dangerous foods.
I want you to think about your own taste. Not whether or not you’d enjoy a lamb chop for dinner tonight, but your actual taste buds. There’s a reason we humans like sweet things. Sweet in nature equals sugar, which then equates to carbohydrates. Carbs are the fuel that keeps us going. We need them to maintain proper energy levels. And we burn that energy off by living our daily lives. The problem is not eating carbs, or fats, or salt, or eggs, or red meat. The problem is quite simply eating the food we enjoy because it tastes good and stopping when we’re full.
It doesn’t matter what you eat, if you eat too much it is not healthy. American meals are ridiculously huge. And it’s a one time sitting affair. We can’t imagine enjoying a seven course meal because that would be just too much food. When the truth is that a true seven course meal is served over a lengthy and relaxing period of time, and all things being equal you’ll be taking in less extraneous food than a typical sit down family meal. Our plates are overflowing with food, and even the healthy eaters among us can’t figure out why they’re not losing the weight.
I’m here with you. I don’t have all of the answers, but if you’re willing to try and eat properly instead of healthily I’ll join you. My recipes here at Munch Monster won’t feature lowfat versions. All I intend is to provide food for my family that tastes so good that I’m hounded for months for a recipe. Getting deliberate requests to bring my cheese soup to a party is the best compliment I can receive. And that’s despite the soup being based on cream and cheese. Oh yeah, and a nice slice of bread to accompany the fatty soup is a nice way to balance everything out.
For the rest of my life I’m sure to fight an arduous battle when it comes to food. I thought getting people to enjoy mid-rare steaks would be tough. Now I see that the real challenge is getting my fellow Americans to just enjoy the food that tastes the best.
