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M E R I D I A N M A G A Z I N E

The Dangers of “American Food”
By Janet Peterson

To get to know her three new step-grandchildren, a woman invited them to spend a week at her home. During that time, Grandma prepared the usual family fare — roast beef, chicken, spaghetti, salads, vegetables, and a few desserts.

Partway through the week, the eight-year-old boy came to her and said, “Grandma, you don't eat American food here, do you?” Rather surprised, she then realized that “American food“ was what his mother had been feeding him and his siblings — a diet of fast food. Nevertheless, she kept on cooking dinner her usual way for them at home.

By the end of the week, this young boy hugged her and said, “Grandma, I sure like your food here.”

Another boy about the same age had immigrated to the United States with his family from Vietnam. As a young adult, he commented on how “American food” had affected his family:

I remember as a child in Vietnam my friends and I walked from home to school every day. Each way was about a mile and took 30 minutes. During the walk we jogged and sometimes we raced to see who would get home first. On our one-hour journey we played and got our exercise in. It was fun and I got to know lots of people.

But all of this was gone when I came to the United States. Going to school here was easier and faster, but the trip on the school bus was tiring (I fell asleep many times). Every day I took the bus to school, and everywhere we went my dad drove us.

After a few years living in the United States, my parents became adapted to the American lifestyle. My mom stopped cooking daily, and my dad does not take me out on bicycle trips like he used to. We ate a lot of canned and pre-made foods. Our family was less involved. We do not eat lunch and dinner together like we used to. Everyone had his or her own eating schedule, and my parents were glued to the television. It seems that our living room now became the dining room.

I remember my parents used to be more active in Vietnam. My mom used to bike for miles to get groceries daily, and she cooked two meals a day for us. The food was fresh, healthy, and tasty. We always had fresh foods and never had any leftovers. My dad used to take me out on a bike ride everyday at sunset, and we went fishing on the weekends.

All of these healthy habits that my parent inherited slowly disappeared once they came to the United States. Life got easier for them, so they became more relaxed and less active. Growing up in the United States I learned that these lazy habits can easily be learned and causes our people to become obese.

When a teenage girl moved to the United States from Russia and attended high school in Salt Lake City, she was amazed by the amount of soda pop her friends and classmates drank. In her native country, soda pop was not readily available nor did many people drink it, especially young people. For a research paper, she studied the harmful effects of soda pop, including weakened bones, tooth decay, obesity, and oxygen deprivation, and was glad she hadn't drunk it during her growing years.

“Americans need to stop an epidemic of obesity or they face the prospect of having a generation of young people who will live shorter lives than their parents and grandparents,” former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee said to a diabetes conference held in Des Moines, Iowa, April 28, 2007.

Huckabee, at the time he was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in 2003, weighed 300 pounds, which he attributed to a sedentary lifestyle and poor eating habits. He warned that there are no quick fixes or miracle solutions to the problem. He called for Americans to make lifestyle changes that will require them to eat less and exercise more.

“We can do it. The fact is, we must do it,” Huckabee said (as quoted by The Des Moines Register, April 29, 2007).

Ruth Reichl, editor of Gourmet magazine and author of Garlic and Sapphires, which recounted her experiences as food critic for the New York Times, spoke in Salt Lake City in May 2007. She told the audience that she had “ranted” in the magazine about a “New York children's food store that offers all-natural food in ‘kid-friendly' forms like chicken nuggets.

She said, “This is what's wrong with America — the idea that we would say to children, ‘You won't like this; we're going to give you this other stuff.' And then we wonder why they have no manners at the table and why they won't eat their food” (as quoted by Stacey Kratz of the Deseret Morning News, May 9, 2007).

Because the United States is a large and diverse country, whose inhabitants draw upon ethnic foods of many countries and regions, it has been hard during previous eras to define a certain type of food as authentic American food.

Unfortunately, we have acquired a label for “American food” — fast, not-home-cooked, unhealthy fare, which in some respects can hardly be considered “food” but rather a combination of chemicals formulated to sell to consumers, not diners. It is time to redefine “American food,” to be known for our delicious and nutritious food, covering a wide variety of dishes and prepared in noncommercial kitchens.

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