Pandemic sees resurgence of family meals, but much of the food we eat makes us sick

McDonald's, Pringles, SPAM and other processed and junk food are featured prominently in the illustration that ran with the article on how we eat in the August/September 2020 issue of AARP The Magazine.

 

AARP article salutes

 rise of industrial farms, 

processed food, multicookers

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- The only upside to the Covid-19 pandemic is that Americans in quarantine or lockdown began to cook again and "the family meal -- long threatened -- returned in earnest."

That's the upbeat conclusion of a sweeping review of how we eat by Ruth Reichl, a cookbook author and onetime restaurant critic for The New York Times.  

But in "The Changing American Table" for AARP The Magazine, Reichl acknowledges that Americans' obsession with baking and desserts pushed the percentage of us who are overweight or obese to about 72 percent today, compared to only 10 percent in 1950.

She discusses the rise of factory farms, the widespread use of human antibiotics to make farm animals grow faster, salmonella outbreaks, processed food and even a best seller, "The Can-Opener Cook Book."

Eating is learned behavior

Reichl, who has written about food for 50 years, acknowledges her own articles about eating fewer carbohydrates, exercising more and drinking less or not at all.

"The real answer, I think, is staring us in the face," Reichl says. "Eating is learned behavior, and from the moment our children are born, we began teaching them that the most delicious foods are filled with fat, sugar and salt."

Organic farming

Although Reichl is one of the most respected food writers in the nation, her AARP article is weak when it comes to discussing the benefits of eating organic food, and the harm of pesticides and the antibiotics used to raise poultry, meat and farmed fish.

"People who care about the environment ... have driven the cause of organic farms, whose numbers have doubled in the past 10 years," she says, adding:

"But the most revolutionary changes in food production revolve around meat. Research has shown that a meat-based diet increases the risk of heart diseases and cancer."

Excerpts

Here are excerpts from Reichl's article for older Americans, and I think you can assume that the "average Americans" she mentions aren't eating pricier organics, antibiotic-free food, wild-caught fish or 100% grass-fed beef:

• "The food on my table -- and yours -- does not resemble in any way what our ancestors ate."
• "Food prices have come down so dramatically that average Americans spend a mere 7 percent of their budget on it -- less than people spend in any other nation on earth."
• "Three-quarters of us are overweight, and 6 out of 10 of us suffer from chronic illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease, asthma and hepatitis."
• "Does our cheap food have anything to do with that?" (Her answer is yes.)
• "After the war [World War II] ended and the Cold War began, our government decided that growing bigger, better and substantially more food than the Soviets ... would be a great way to spread democracy."
• On family summer road trips, regional specialties were replaced by fast food.
• "By the mid '50s ... housewives filled their freezers with three iconic foods of that moment: TV dinners, fish sticks and Tater Tots."
• "Instant mashed potatoes, freeze-dried instant coffee, Pop-Tarts, Tang and, of course, Carnation Instant Breakfast began to line our cupboard shelves."
• "Mom bragged she could get dinner on the table in 15 minutes flat."

The coronavirus

"The coronavirus disrupted the American food supply, and it changed the way I shop, cook and eat," Reichl says.

"Indeed, across the country, people in lockdown began to cook again" and "many who had never before put their hands into dirt planted gardens ...," she says.

"People like me, who live in rural parts of the country, began buying our food straight from the farm, just like my mother once did," Reichl adds. "I know I'll be doing that for the rest of my life."

To read Reichl's piece in its entirety, click on the following link:

A foodie reflects on 50 years of change

Shopping for organics

During most of the year, the closest my family and others in northern New Jersey get to the farm is Whole Foods Market in Paramus, where I buy as many organics as possible.

Costco Wholesale in Teterboro and ShopRite supermarkets also are good sources for organic produce, organic pasta and other organically grown food.

I grew up in a kosher household in Brooklyn, N.Y., where the family meal was sacred, and I've been cooking all my life, both when I was single and after I married.

That has continued during the pandemic.

I'm a pescatarian living with a wife, son and mother-in-law who eat meat and poultry, so we cook more than most families and find it challenging to order takeout once a week.

For ideas on preparing family meals, see my cooking and food shopping videos:

Victor's Healthy Kitchen

Consumer Reports is exposing Big Sugar for perpetrating a fraud on U.S. consumers

This small, 6-ounce container of Yoplait Original Harvest Peach low-fat yogurt contains 19 grams of "sugars" or the equivalent of nearly 5 teaspoons (4 grams of sugar in each teaspoon). The American Heart Association recommends 9 (or fewer) teaspoons or 36 grams of added sugar per day for men and 6 teaspoons or 24 grams per day for women and children.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

And you thought saturated fat in meat, poultry, butter and other foods is the major cause of heart disease.

Now, Consumer Reports exposes "a food fraud that may have been perpetrated on the American public" by Big Sugar.

"A report published in JAMA Internal Medicine revealed that in the 1960s, scientific research -- secretly bankrolled by the sugar industry -- was released that downplayed the effects of a sugar-laden diet and instead called out 'saturated fat' as the real dietary demon responsible for heart disease.

"And media outlets, food manufacturers, and ordinary citizens ate it up.

"That bit of nutritional subterfuge may have been at least partly responsible for 50 years of misleading public health advice.

"And the resulting flood of packaged foods that were low in fat but high in sugars and refined grains may have contributed to the current epidemic of obesity and related diseases" in the United States, including type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

"Today, the typical American diet is packed with huge amounts of added sugars: We're talking those used as ingredients in many packaged food [yogurt, pasta sauce and so forth] -- not the one naturally found in foods such as fruit and milk.

"One thing there is little doubt about now: Added sugars are bad for you."

The November 2017 issue of Consumer Reports on the dangers of too much sugar in your diet carries an extensive report called "Eat Smarter, Eat Healthier." Sections include sugar as "the gateway to weight gain," "how food-packaging claims can fool you," how too much salt can tax your heart, how cutting back on fat is "only half the battle," and the risks of going gluten-free.

Sugar industry power

The sugar industry lobby is so powerful that sugar is the only ingredient on those "nutrition fact" labels you find on packaged food not accompanied by the percentage of maximum recommended daily consumption.

For example, a 6-ounce container of Yoplait Original low-fat yogurt with fruit lists the amount of "sugars" as 19 grams with no equivalent in teaspoons or any other information [4 grams of sugar equal 1 teaspoon].

The Food and Drug Administration's plan for new food labels has been postponed, Consumer Reports says.

Food reporting

In recent years, Consumer Reports has become the leading source of reporting on industrial farms; the danger of the human antibiotics used to raise cattle, chickens, pigs and other animals; and the excessive amounts of added sugar and fat in food.

Newspapers big and small have lagged in this regard, and even the food sections of newspapers as prestigious as The New York Times are filled with recipes that rely heavily on sugar, butter, heavy cream, and full-fat milk and cheeses, all of which have been linked to obesity and heart disease.

'Death by chocolate'

For example, on Wednesday, the Better Living section of The Record, my local daily newspaper, ran sugar-laden recipes from chefs for Triple Silken Pumpkin Pie and Chocolate Shortbread Cookies.

There also was a guide to making a Cinnamon Sugar Nut Jar at home with 1 cup of sugar, ground cinnamon and nuts.

On Dec. 15, the cover story in Better Living recommended "Dark Delights: The Best Chocolate Concoctions [spelled 'Concotions'] in North Jersey."

Appropriately enough, one of the photos showed a dessert with "four distinct chocolate treats" called "Death by Chocolate," served at Village Green Restaurant in Ridgewood.

"No one has yet been able to finish it [the dessert]," the chef was quoted as saying, though he didn't mention whether it has put anyone into the hospital.