Brain Fertilizer

Things have changed quite a bit in this regard, and not necessarily for the better.

Most of what I eat these days is store-bought and warmed in a microwave. It's not objectionable, but it's not particularly appetizing either. And this despite the fact that both I and my wife are excellent cooks.

It's worth some reflection. Food is life. What do we do when we get unexpected guests? We feed them. It's a recognition of fundamentals, and a reaffirmation of the safety of the guest: he need not fear that we'll poison him at our table.

But Pathmark, or King Kullen, though it might not poison one, could leave him wondering why he eats at all...indeed, why he lives.

This is worth some extended thought.

Good. You underscore the point of this site: to provide fodder for thought.
Along the way I'll give you my opinions, assertions, and impressions....but thought stimulation is the whole point.

Hmmm, food prior to the microwave was healthy? I'm not so sure - Crisco was good for us? :) Sorry, but growing up the son of a Southern mother, I can say our food was prepared with love, even while it was clogging up our arteries.

I'd be more inclined to say that the rise of cable/satellite television, video games, and the internet has done more to keep people on their asses without exertion than much else.

As an aside, I don't think the sharing of food with guests has anything to do with not poisoning them: if they thought you might, they wouldn't be at your table. Rather, sharing food seems more an evolutionary trait to form bonds by sharing a (formerly) scarce resource.

Okay, you got me with Crisco. There is no defending that stuff.

On the other hand, I do lament the loss of the "bacon grease in a tin can" that each homemaker had sitting by the stove for use in cooking and reheating food. The overall civility in society has declined so far since that no longer became the norm that I often joke that there must have been some sort of vitamin in it that we all lack now.

To tell the truth, the original post was a little more Low-Carb oriented...but the more I wrote, the more I realized that obesity has far broader influences than just carbs vs proteins.

I do agree that the nature of entertainment ("I'm going to sit back and do nothing, and you have to entertain me") is probably one such factor...but while I don't think the microwave harms the nutritional value of food, I do think it changed our attitude toward food. Convenience and comfort became too important.

Yeah, this all plays into Gregg Easterbrook's The Paradox of Plenty book, or whatever it is called.

I don't know, Nathan. I was only born in 1972, but I seem to remember that until the early '90's, the big joke everywhere from talk shows to potluck dinners was that the family microwave was a $300 popcorn popper. Also, wasn't it right after the War that everyone thought canned vegetables were "progressive" and fresh foods were for primitive agricultural societies? When we went to my grandparents' for dinner, the menu was invariably canned corn, canned peas, mashed potatoes, and beef cooked until it was good and dead. I have it on pretty good authority that Grandma (may she rest in peace) hadn't changed her cooking style since the I Love Lucy era.

Something else to consider, for the sake of perspective: the Japanese toss plenty of prepared foods and convenience foods down their gullets, but most of them (the foods) aren't nasty and most of them (the people) aren't fat. Part of the difference is that we in America associate "home-cooked food" with the sorts of baked/oven-roasted things that lose their à point appeal when kept and reheated. Japanese food tends toward the extremes: either it's raw on the plate in front of you, or it's been boiled in some briny sauce for hours. Unless you're hungry for tempura, the food you want tends to be easy to take-out in its most fussed-over form, anyway.

There also hasn't been the massive replacement of fat content with sugar content in packaged foods here.

Which reminds me of something I read once (and am trying to reconstruct from memory):

Americans eat lots of pasta and die early of heart disease. Italians eat lots of pasta and live long lives, relatively free of heart disease.

Americans drink lots of wine and eat lots of cheese and pastries, and die early of heart disease and obesity-related illnesses. The French drink lots of wine and eat lots of cheese and pastries and live long lives, relatively free of heart disease.

Americans eat lots of fried food, as well as lots of protein-and-starch meals, and die early of heart disease and obesity-related illnesses. Japanese eat lots of fried food, as well as lots of protein-and-starch meals, and live long lives, relatively free of heart disease.

Forget diet, it's speaking English that kills you.

...which explains why the Japanese work themselves to death to avoid learning how to do it.

The Chinese aren't so skittish about it. I guess they figure if they can survive the Communist Party and its attendent socialist disasters, they can survive something as minor as learning English...
...or, at least learning Engligh badly...[grin]