Quality Over Quantity: Local Food & the Obesity Epidemic

[marmar]

from YES! Magazine:




Quality Over Quantity: Local Food & the Obesity Epidemic
When we sacrifice good food to have lots of food, it's a double loss. Can we use this time of thinner wallets to examine the volume of food we run through our bodies?

by Vicki Robin
posted Sep 13, 2010


When Tricia Beckner asked me to eat only what she can produce on her CSA farm-ette for a month, just to see what happens, I was game. As you’ll see, we’ve widened the circle a little to include food produced 10 miles from my home on Whidbey Island, Wa., with exceptions made for 4 essentials: oil, salt (+5 other spices), caffeine, and lemons (until I can find local apple cider vinegar).

Two news stories this morning, seemingly unrelated, mated in my mind and made a baby thought.

Story one: Because of the stalled economy and tight personal finances, people are grocery shopping at Walmart instead of Whole Foods. They just can’t afford organics.

Story two: 70 percent of people in the U.S. are overweight or obese. Far fewer think they are.

Okay. Is this 2+2=4 or what? We assume we have to keep up the volume of food so are willing to cheat on quality—never even questioning whether we might be eating too much.

We are overweight, in part, because we super-size ourselves. We eat when we are happy, sad, lonely, angry, bored, tired… and oh yes, hungry. As I’ve said in this blog, we eat for taste, for volume, for therapy, out of habit. Our food system and food supplies are so skewed by government policies and inequality of wealth that we get few signals from the stores, or even from prices, that there are food shortages elsewhere. There is always plenty at the grocery store—neatly lined up, inviting us to buy and eat. And to be honest, don’t we all love that?

We luxuriate in food in the U.S. (at least most of us do). It is so second nature that when money is tight, we don't eat less. Instead, we seek the experience of endless food at Walmart, that genius of distributing mountains of products for “everyday low prices.” ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/vicki-robin-my-10-mile-diet/quality-over-quantity-local-food-the-obesity-epidemic

[travelingtypist]

1. Duh.

Shouldn've had more practical trips for following her example, now to find local food. I've gone as far as I can with intuitive eating and need to take another step. This was fascinating only in that she's acting like the rest of us have never heard of HFCS.

:banghead: