Some home-eating truths

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Some home-eating truths

JoAnn Guest

Jan 12, 2007 12:07 PST

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Some home-eating truths

http://www.cee-foodindustry.com/news/ng.asp?id=70181

 

29/08/2006 - As food manufacturers inch closer to the holy grail of

low-calorie, trans-fat free flavor-fantastic products one has to ask

how

we veered so far from the common sense of fresh home-cooked meals.

 

Why not save both industry and consumers the time, money, hassle and

environmental resources and go right back to where healthy eating

began

– in the garden and market?

To satisfy a desire for convenience, fresh foods were replaced by

processed foods lacking a spectrum of nutrients. And new characters -

 

like trans fats or preservatives - were introduced.

 

In an effort to have a happier ending, we find ourselves jumping on

the

supposedly healthy bandwagon as food companies pare down harmful

ingredients and re-inject nutrition into their products through

fortification.

 

Food companies, who follow the curve of market economics, are

scapegoats

in a tale where society is to blame. Now nearly one third of the US

population and well over one fifth of the population in the United

Kingdom is obese, according to National Institute of Health and

British

Heart Foundation statistics respectively.

 

At the mercy of modernity, domestic activities such as the loving

preparation of meals with fresh ingredients or reading a child a

bedtime

story can get overlooked. Yet it's hard to imagine a more productive

use

of time.

 

Something's definitely gone awry if productivity in the workplace,

for

example, earns more respect than productivity in the kitchen - where

a

healthy foundation for all other aspects of life begins.

 

Perhaps we've become too emotionally distanced from our food and its

origins. We don't notice a tradition and value system slipping away,

being replaced by a grab-and-go lifestyle that leads to over-eating

because we're not even paying attention to what we're biting into.

 

But let's not paint all societies with the same brush. Those of us

who

grew up in North America or the British Isles, for example,

certainly

seem to approach food with a lot less reverence than other cultures.

 

As I stood in my apartment in front of my open fridge one evening

before

embarking on some mindless grazing, I was enlightened to this

cultural

difference. My French friend was appalled I was snacking before

bedtime.

 

Of course I know snacking isn't great for the figure, but – along

with

many Americans, Canadians, British and Irish – I've come to see the

refrigerator as having entertainment-value. Just like a television,

it

can provide mindless distraction.

 

Have I taken the ritual out of meals and shed all the common sense

values my ancestors took for granted about eating only at the table

after lengthy preparations and surrounded by good company?

 

Mireille Guilano, president and CEO of champagne giant Cliquot,

cashed-in on the unhealthy paradox of our supposedly simplified

modern

lifestyle with her bestseller " French Women Don't Get Fat " .

 

" Why don't French women, or men, for that matter, get fat? " writes

French-born Guilano. " The reason is that we have adapted traditional

eating to modern living, which typically includes less than

traditional

levels of exertion. "

 

Guilano's recipe for healthy living is simple: buy fresh

ingredients,

cook your meals from scratch and eat them with a sense of occasion

so as

to savor every bite.

 

Sounds like a job well done, or, a story with a better ending.

 

Clarisse Douaud is a reporter with NutraIngredients-USA.com and has

lived and worked in Canada, Ireland, Argentina and France. If you

would

like to comment on the piece, send an email

to:clarisse-.

 

 

JoAnn Guest

mrsjo-

www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Diets