Ok so we might be on a Polynesian Island but we're definitely in America. On the second day i ordered a chicken salad for lunch and it arrived at the table in the form of two distinct mountains of salad, obscuring ample portions of caramelised chicken breast, and topped with lashings of mayonnaise and marie rose sauce swirls. The waitress kept bringing basket upon basket of bread rolls at no extra cost, the sweetest i have ever tasted. I could only finish one of the moutains, the other i took home in a doggy bag. This was the first clue.
The second clue was that there was a section on the menu called a rather fascist sounding 'Weight management selection', where each selection conformed to a calorie count of 590.
Today i bought a sandwich from a supermarket. It took me ages to find something that i thought would be good for me and nutritious but eventually i found a beef sandwich on brown bread. Cant go wrong eh ? When i left the supermarket i began to inspect the ingredients and nutritional information, only to find that the sandwich contained a vast array of chemicals i had never heard of. What surprised me the most was to read the phrase "Product may be coated in.." followed by such delicacies as ferrous sulphate, sugar, and caramel coulouring. What struck me was that it wasnt sufficient to source simple quality ingredients, and serve them in a nice fresh arrangement. The producers were actually adding chemicals to enhance the taste of the basic product. The lovely brown bread was being made sweeter, and imbued with a more appealing, richer caramel colour. The sandwich clearly didnt have enough iron in it as it was, hence the addition of the ferrous sulphate, upon which they could proudly advertise its 'rich in iron' statement. This is blatant manipulation of both the product and the customer. They obviously dont give a shit about nutrition - only that the food tastes absolutely as best as it can by artificial means, so that the customer thinks 'that was nice, i'll have to buy one of those again'. The central tenet of American capitalism, the precedence of economics over society, is clearly at play here. I always wondered why 1 in 3 Americans are clinically obese, and thought it must be due to weak will or something, but now i can see that the common man doesnt have a chance while they are being targetted in this way. The roadsides are lined with vendors selling massively nutritionally irresponsible food products, from ice cream to cheesecake, hamburgers to hotdogs, chips to fried chicken with biscuits. Its just about the money.
[this is good] Mmmm fried chicken with biscuits...
Posted by: The Big Holion | 03/25/2009 at 10:54 PM