Lack of Attentiveness: Why American food sucks so much
When I was in Vietnam two summers ago, I kicked around a little with this Chinese girl who was dating somebody else in our group. We sort of shared the experience of being the only non-Vietnamese people in the group (though apart from that, our experience couldn't have been much different). Anyway, at one point, she confided in me that she really missed Chinese food. "You must miss American food to," she said.

And I said, "No, not really. American food kind of sucks."

And I'm sorry, but it's true. I just stumbled across this fascinating photo essay from MSN about what families around the world consume in a week (thanks, sparrow1029!), and it really drove the point home for me. I've been meaning to make a post about food all summer, so I guess this is my chance.

America--especially suburban, and, to a lesser extent, small-town, America--is a convenience culture. The American family in that slideshow is one of the most depressing things I've ever seen. 90% of the food in it is prepackaged, convenience food. Even the applesauce is packaged in individual cups. We're looking at the Hamburger Helper brand of cooking--empty the box into a pan (or straight into the microwave) and walk away.

When I rant about this, my mom is quick to point out that if both parents are working all day--a necessity for many families in the U.S.--nobody has time to cook real food, from scratch. But . . . I'm still not convinced. With a little planning, and more importantly, a little knowledge, even working people can cook.

Ever since I got home from college, I've been working on an aggressive campaign to start making things from scratch. I started with noodles for chicken noodle soup, then bread (that no-knead stuff that's been going around; easy enough to work into a busy schedule if you time it right). Slowly, we've been weeding out expensive stir-fry and spaghetti sauces, replacing them with homemade versions that taste better. I finally went straight for two of the holdouts of prepackaged food in our house--refried beans and flour tortillas.

Now, granted, my refried bean process requires attention on three separate days (soaking, slow-cooking, and finishing), but the actual time spent in the kitchen is only around thirty minutes, thanks to the wonder of crock pots. The tortillas are sort of labor-intensive, but they are a) much better-tasting than the ones from the store, and b) cost literally a fraction of what store-bought tortillas do. (Tortillas around here run about $3 for twelve. I can make 16 for about 75 cents, not counting the energy to cook them.)

Around here, cost is the primary factor that's making me press the from-scratch style of cooking. But the benefits go far beyond that. Cooking things myself allows me to control the amounts of fat and sodium that go into my food. Sodium is an especially important one--prepackaged foods are lousy with it, and it's really so simple to make delicious foods with entirely reasonable amounts of salt. Canned soup is an especially bad offender, and soup is so easy to make! Ditto for broths--I routinely make chicken broth, and I save all my veggie scraps to put together a delicious vegetable broth, which I use in soups and whatnot--all much lower sodium than what you'd get in a can. (As a bonus, the veggie broth is essentially free!)

(Digression! One other thing about our diet, which isn't so much tied to the from-scratch ethic as it is to the "living below the poverty line" ethic is that our meals are very heavy on dried beans and rice. Dried pinto beans, for example, are pretty much the cheapest form of protein you'll come across. I picked up a 25 lb. bag of pintos at Safeway for $14--and that's without going to any sort of bulk food supplier! In addition to protein, beans are also packed with fiber and vitamins, and can be cooked in a bazillion different ways. This summer, I was heavy on vegetarian curries and chilis, but as winter approaches, I'm moving more towards refried beans and casseroles with green chili sauces that contain more animal fat--which I process myself by cooking whole chickens and making broth from the carcass, rather than buying bags of breasts. If you HAVE to eat meat, at least use every bit of it.)

The other thing that depresses me so much about the American food photo is the appalling shortage of fresh foods in the photo. I see one little bag of grapes, and a few tomatoes, and a couple bags of salad greens. (Yes, even our GREENS are prepackaged!) Compare that to the photos from India, Mexico, and Turkey, which are just packed with fresh fruits and veggies. I mean, even the U.K., birthplace of toad in the hole, for God's sake, has more fresh food in the photo than we do! Is it any wonder we're fat? God.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you can trace almost all of the problems with America's diet back to a fundamental lack of involvement with our food. When you're cooking for yourself--especially under budget constraints--you naturally pay more attention to things like fat and sodium, because you can control them. (You may also learn, as I did, that it is possible to make dishes that are utter powerhouses of flavor without using very much fat, and often no animal products at all.) We're simultaneously busy and lazy, and between those two, we just don't pay attention to our food.

It's not easy. Sometimes, it means giving up a little bit of precious spare time; my days off turn into cooking days, and often the first thing I do when I get home from work is throw together some tortillas or set some beans to soak. But it's worth it. My family is eating healthier, for less money, and producing less waste (environmental bonus!). Win, win, win!