I am reading a book about why Americans are overweight. I don't have the
book with me so don't remember the name or the author. But the book claims
that this trend of more and more Americans becoming overweight started in
the 1980's.

It also states the reason. It is the food we are now eating. That food is
laden with salt, fat and sugar. A sure combination for appeal. At least to
Americans. The book claims that foreigners who eat American food often do
not like it.

The book talks about popular restaurant chains like Applebee's and Chili's.
It tells what they do to their food before it arrives at the restaurant.
Often it is highly processed to make it easy to eat. Apparently we like a
texture that basically just slides down our throat with little chewing
involved. It is often fried before arriving at the restaurant and then
fried again before serving. It might be soaked in a salty brine or in the
case of some sort of chicken it is put in a marinade and then put in a
machine that spins it rapidly and forces more of the marinade deep inside
the meat. These foods are laden with sauces containing fat, sugar and salt.
And really these days it is mostly high fructose corn syrup and not sugar!

The book also talks about salads and how Ranch Dressing is so popular.
Apparently people really like it. Now I can honestly say I have never eaten
Ranch dressing. It does not look appealing to me. And I can not stand the
smell of it. I do not personally think that most dressings are healthy or
necessary so I had hoped Angela would not want to eat this stuff. But she
loves it as does my husband. She does not get it often though.

I love salad and have never liked any sort of dressing on it. I do like
lemon juice. I taught Angela to eat her salad this way. But sadly she does
prefer the dressing. Due to her food allergies, most restaurant dressing is
out of the question. But she can eat some Italian dressing. That is the
one dressing I will eat in a pasta salad. But it has to have good, quality
ingredients. I will not buy stuff with high fructose corn syrup or soybean
oil.

I must say I have eaten at Chili's only once in my lifetime. Or I should
say I have been to one. I found I could not bring myself to eat more than a
bite of the food. I had a boss who used to rave about how good their food
was. This baffled me. I also talk to someone online who lives in TX and
eats their food all the time. Just his description of the food puts me off.
I have only been to Applebees twice. I wasn't able to eat much of their
food either. That sort of food is just not appealing to me.

Now maybe I am the odd one out. I think I can usually tell when a food
comes premade and frozen. And I usually do not like such foods. Maybe I
don't like a lot of sauces because I didn't grow up eating food with sauce
on it. I did eat a lot of fried food when I was young. At least my mother
said I did. She used to make me fried chicken hearts and fried okra all the
time. We move to WA when I was 7 and she quit deep frying when we moved
here. She did make pan fried potatoes once in a while but that was it for
the fried foods.

I do like some French fries. But I do not like them with cheese. I did try
these once. I can't imagine them with cheese and bacon. Or with chili. I
have had potato skins. I liked to eat one or two provided they didn't have
any sour cream on them and not too much cheese or bacon. I just to not like
overly oily foods.

If it were not for my bad stomach, I would probably eat mainly raw
vegetables as the bulk of my diet. That is really what appeals to me. I
would not (as most of the volunteers did) be drawn to a Snickers bar placed
in front of them. I never was super keen on candy bars but there was
something about a Snickers that did not appeal. I also do not like Cinnabon
(giant cinnamon roll covered in cream cheese icing). This was another thing
that apparently most of us like.

I know I am not alone because I was talking to a woman the other day who
said she loved the Japanese food such as is served at Benihana's because it
is light and doesn't fill you up. There is meat, vegetables and plain rice.
Now I do love plain rice (not that I eat a lot of it) but I do not care for
vegetables prepared like that and I'm not a big meat lover. I have only
tried Japanese food twice but I didn't care for the seasonings.

So I guess while I know that the general population prefers food that is
easy to slide down the throat and is loaded with fat, sugar and salt, is the
kind of fare that we as diabetics prefer? I'm not talking about what we eat
because we have to. Is it what we prefer? I was looking at recipes for
porcupine meatballs for Angela after seeing Paula Deen make them with no
eggs. I couldn't use her recipe. Can't remember why now but there was some
allergen in it. I did find some suitable recipes. But I also found some
that called for brown sugar to be put in the tomato sauce. I was
thinking... Why? What's wrong with good, real, whole food?

I still don't know why I am overweight. The book didn't get to that part
yet. If it even will. But for the most part I do not eat apparently the
way most Americans do.