The latest problem du jour is obesity and the solution du jour is to go to court and sue everyone. Sue the snack maker, the fast-food chain, the butcher, the baker and the soft drink maker. And while you’re at it, sue the restaurant that gives us the big portions. Didn’t our mother tell us to eat everything on our plate? Oh, what the heck, sue mom too!
Looks like the lawyers are gonna win again! The only people we don’t sue for our obesity is ourselves! I guess we just don’t have the money these other people do. If we did, we would sue ourselves. I could hear the argument in court now. “Your honor, I’d like to ask myself a question. What was going through my mind when I saw that cheesecake? I picked up that cheesecake, I ate that cheesecake, but it wasn’t my fault. No, Sara Lee made it look too good. Those frozen cherries pushed me over the edge. They tempted me. They played with my emotions, but then I came to my senses! I knew I shouldn’t have eaten it. But it looked so good! That’s why I’m seeking compensation to the tune of $40 million dollars.”
Krispy Kreme (No, they can’t spell) is expanding internationally and with almost half a billion in sales, sees great growth in foreign countries, as we, in America, see our great growth from their product.
The airlines call them customers of size. The Coast Guard has lowered passenger capacity on ferry boats because of it. The nation is carrying about 4.5 billion excess pounds around its middle and it’s not pretty. We’re the 4th largest country in the world with about 30% of the population either having a body mass index of 30 or a discernable muffin top. Or both!
A study by the Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal, states that if the United States keeps waddling down its current country fried path, roughly half of American men and women will be obese by 2030 which could mean good news for the bottom line of Krispy Kreme.
Question: Since we as a people are getting heavier will this have a negative effect on the planet if 2 billion of us vacation in South America at the same time? Can we throw it off its axis? What’s an axis? We don’t have to answer that question because we’ll use the same thought processes as when we ponder the sun blinking out in billions of years. We’ll put it behind us, and that’s the problem. It’s all behind us.
How did we get here? Well, we have an outdated food pyramid which is a white elephant that rears its nutty, fruity head on the back of cafeteria doors. Does it work? If it did, a year’s revenue from the sale of Doritos and Coke Classic in high schools wouldn’t have equaled the cost of three new aircraft carriers.
There’s nothing like some comfort food to make us level out in a rough world. Let’s think out of the triangular box so the choices in a new, improved comfort food pyramid. The new choices can be taken in any order. Think food circle. We’ll devour this new teaching like Andrew Zimmern eats meaty bugs. Forget 4 servings of carrots and broccoli each day. Give us something we can work with like the lowly potato. Baked in the skin and with nothing on the side, it may be good for you, but as exciting as a democratic stump speech. Let’s configure the daily starch into a more palatable dish. That’s right, French fries! And the greasier, the better. Add cheese and we’re flying. I almost added them to the top of the list, but cooler heads prevailed, so Ben and Jerry’s number 1 selling flavor, Cherry Garcia®, made it to the top. This is not ordinary ice cream. With Cherry Garcia® you get 10% of your calcium, which is more than you’ll get in Tums® but what the heck, we’re going for comfort here.
Next on our new list is Pepperoni double cheese pizza and a crust stuffed with extra goodness. If your name is resident, you’ll get more pizza deals in your mailbox than your antacid can handle. It goes without saying that any type of candy, cake, pudding or pie qualifies as comfort food. Extra points if any amount of chocolate is involved.
Another question: Why do these foods make us feel better? Answer: They appeal to our taste buds. A taste bud enable your mouth to say to your brain “Whoa!, what’s that?” The sensation tells you A, I never want to put that in my mouth again, or B, Give me more! There’s one taste bud no one talks about but is aware of on so many levels. It’s the grease bud. This much maligned bud has been ignored by scientists and food experts world-wide. The grease bud is like the undiscovered country. We know it exists but lack the guts to bring it into the fold. What tastes better after a few brews than a cheeseburger and fries? Nothing!
Snacking surpasses the smart phone as the national pastime, and we’ve thankfully brushed the aftereffects aside. Thank goodness for cheese flavored Tums®
