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America's Love - Hate Relationship for FOOD Children don't know the difference between vegetables and fruits anymore, let alone could name certain products. This is not happening in some third- world country due to the fact that there is maybe just not a diversity people there could choose from. No, I am talking about children born and raised in the United States of America, where the word abundance has mutated into a nasty word. Nowhere but here had I seen so much food before I set foot onto US soil for real. I remember going grocery shopping with my cousins in Canada thinking to myself flabbergastedly, 'Holy Macaroni! How do people find what they are looking for in particular amongst the thousands of different products?' And yet I had not encountered the Armageddon of food courts, marts and malls until I came here. No doubt, my dwarf- sized home country Austria cannot hold a candle to these ridiculously over- packed assortments of goods, items and products, but honestly, what do I need an entire aisle of dairy products for if I only shop for one yogurt, some cheese, a carton of eggs and, one gallon of milk? Take yogurt for instance.
There's at least a range of 10 different brands out there, but not one could claim fame for being truly low in sugar. Or try and pick a supposedly healthy kind of butter in that giant maze of margarines, butters, lards, and spreads. Just unreal! The same goes for bread, cereals, cake mixtures, candy, pizza, ice- cream, coffee, soda, and so on, and so on. What I really don't understand is the circumstance that many shopping sites are so huge, yes humongous that it is indeed surprising that a third of the US population is still considered obese as by just walking the aisles up and down you normally easily get a few miles of exercise in. What must the daily caloric intake be then, I wonder. Just kidding! I have always had weight struggles myself, but here it is a lot easier to put on an extra 20 or 30 pounds in less that half a decade. Everywhere you look there's food places one way or another. Even coffee shop chains like Dunkin' Donuts or Starbucks actually sell quite a bit of food along with their beverages. Food, food, and nothing but food, and that's all day long, 24/7, all year around not even sparing out holidays. So food is on people's minds constantly - just like on mine, and we all know what it means to be conditioned like that. Exactly, we are all eventually eating ourselves over- weight and sick. Wow, statistically every third person here is morbidly obese. Really? By the way, who has determined the BMI (body mass index) of 30 or above to be obese? Right, US- scientists, doctors, and nutritionists. Pathetic, isn't it? America is world- leading as far as 200 million over- weight, fat as well as super- fat people as a logical consequence of an enormously abundant and diverse spectrum of mainly fast and processed foods. All of a sudden tons of TV- shows are popping up just like mushrooms tackling obesity nation wide as if the Black Plague broke out all over again. In reality all these greatly ambitious fun shows are nothing but a fluke and ill- reputed as most XL- contestants will relapse and fall off the food waggon. Why is this? Well, how is anyone supposed to seriously keep the weight off still being embedded in an excessive culinary world of its own? How can you individually change and stay on track if the majority around you keeps running to their and your beloved and worshipped fast- food temples? Unless the whole nation undergoes a drastic and major change, nothing and nobody will ever change for real. It's that simple.
For God's sake, teach the kids here the difference between a tomato and a potato, and stop the B.S. about light, non- fat, sugar- free, and skimmed products as the culprit is certainly never the what but how much of it we consume. Indulge in everything as long as it is fresh, but keep an eye on the portion size. And last but not least, steer your mind away from food if this is in the realm of possibilities in this country.

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