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Y’all Get Fat Now, Hear?

by | 12, Add your Comment | Apr 18, 2010

Southerners, perhaps more than any other Americans, have a love affair with their food. Of late however, the relationship between Americans south of the Mason/Dixon line and their food has become more complicated and by many measures, downright dangerous.

According to the Trust For American’s Health 2009 study, eight of the ten states with the highest rates of obese and overweight children and adults are in the South. Mississippi led the way with the highest rate of adult obesity at 32.5 percent, making it the fifth year in a row that the state topped the list. Four states now have rates above 30 percent, including Mississippi, Alabama (31.2 percent), West Virginia (31.1 percent), and Tennessee (30.2 percent).

Yet we continue to worship at the altar of Paula Deen, making her one of the most watched, highest paid and most beloved of the Food Network stars. Ms. Deen’s secret recipe to our hearts? Butter. Lots of butter, cream, bacon and processed foods.  Watching what goes into her recipes reminds me of a saying my boss was fond of uttering: I love sausage; I just don’t want to see them make it.

We have become a nation addicted to processed, premade assembly line food that has been wrung dry of nutrient value, loaded with salt, preservatives, chemical additives and artificial everything. Because most of the populace under forty has been weaned on this stuff, many have never tasted what real, slow cooked fresh food can taste like.

Believe me, if we demanded it, KFC would sell it. What we have instead is the artery clogging Double Down Chicken “Sandwich”.  Michael Debakey is undoubtedly doing back flips in his grave. This sandwich is actually two pieces of deep- fried chicken stuffed with bacon and cheese. It tips the scale at 540 calories and ten grams of saturated fat!

Enter Jamie Oliver. The British super chef launched a campaign in the UK five years ago that focused on healthy eating and proper nutrition and diet for the nation’s school children. Inspired by his success across the pond, Oliver came to the West Virginia community of Huntington. Named by the Centers for Disease Control in 2008 as the most obese city in the US, Huntington signed on to be featured on ABC’s Food Revolution.

As anyone who has seen the series can attest, pizza, nuggets and processed foods aren’t going down easy. Oliver has more than his work cut out for him as the processed food industry, industrial food manufacturers, advertisers  and a cadre of farming conglomerates have too much at stake in keeping America fat.

We have seen the enemy and they are us. Kudos to the spotlight our First lady is putting on the issue of childhood obesity. When America wakes up and starts pushing back against the food industry like it did with big tobacco, perhaps we’ll start to see some slimmer waistlines and longer life expectancy.

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Michael J. Solender

About Michael J. Solender

Michael J. Solender is a recent corporate refugee whose opinion and satire has been featured in The Richmond Times Dispatch, The Winston-Salem Journal, and Richmond Style Weekly. He writes a weekly Neighborhoods column for The Charlotte Observer and is the City Life Editor for Charlotte ViewPoint. His micro-fiction has been featured online at Bull Men’s Fiction, Calliope Nerve, Danse Macabre, Dogzplot, Gloom Cupboard, Full of Crow, Pangur Ban Party and others.

You can find more of his work at his website and also at his blog.

 

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Recents posts by Michael J. Solender

  • Vincent Allen

    Nice article. Unfoturnately one can simply choose not to smoke or use tobacco products and still live just fine. The same is not true for food. Otherwise the idea put forth in the article is very sound and one of the most sought after behavioral changes of all time. Now back to my Egg McMuffin and coffee.

  • http://www.lynn-alexander.com LynnAlexander

    Paula Deen appeals to many who equate food with comfort, heavy calorie laden foods with love and nurturing. It can be a tough sell to convince people that healthy food can taste good and also be “loving”.

    People often make the argument that we have free will, that we can just choose not to participate, and that is true. But children are another matter because they are being conditioned and many are already “obese” with a high BMI. Children now have diabetes, high cholesterol, obesity-related illnesses.

    There is nothing “loving” about having your child on blood pressure medicine before they are out of high school. Combine this with sedentary lifestyles and we are dooming our children to a lifetime of health problems and poor habits.

    I happen to LOVE Jamie Oliver, and I think we need to change the way society interacts with food industries.

    Great article, Michael, and such an important issue. It isn’t easy to get between a woman and her stick of butter! But really, enough!

    • Monica Smith

      Well, as long as economic growth is considered a good and increasing expenditures for health care are considered an increase in the Gross Domestic Product, instead of being subtracted as a signal of negative behavior, it’s going to be difficult to make any headway. Kitchen gardens and any kind of do-it-yourself endeavor is now categorized as part of the “underground,” “shadow economy” or “black market.” Indeed, Michelle Obama was castigated by the food industry for setting a bad example. What used to be considered scornfully as “subsistence farming”--i.e. agriculture that actually kept people alive, has now been reclassified into “recreational farming,” on a par with jogging and running around on all-terrain vehicles--and probably equally profitable when you calculate the round-up and fertilizer and soil stabilizers, etc.
      A pacified population is easier to control. And that’s the problem. Pacification was practiced in Vietnam and Iraq. I’m still waiting to hear how that permitting system and iris scanning worked out in Fallujah.

  • http://www.freshfreeemail.blogspot.com Kim

    Butter, oddly, is the least of the enemies. (http://www.westonaprice.org/) Butter is a natural food, versus chemical/fake margarine. I subscribe to the theory that if it didn’t exist prior to 1900, we probably shouldn’t be eating it. If it did, it’s about moderation. The difference of course between 1900 and 2000 is that we move much less.

    This is fabulous, Michael. We ABSOLUTELY need to remember that fattening, unhealthy, processed food is NOT comforting, but rather poisoning.

    Thank you for this… You rock!

  • http://www.darbybritto.com Darby

    Since returning to the south I have eaten fried brussels sprouts, enough said and yes, they were good.

  • George

    Leave our Paula out of this! I read a study by some university recently that found that our systems are all out of whack due to the amount of pesticides and growth hormones that are used in food production. the study suggested that all those chemicals and additives had changed our metabolism cause kids to be heavier. In my own study I discovered that when I eat less and exercise more I weight less. I think I’ll prepare fried macaroni and cheese, and stuffed porkchops for dinner tonight.

  • http://notfromhereareyou.blogspot.com/ Michael J. Solender

    Don’t get me wrong, I love Paula to death. It’s the reciprocity that worries me. All good things in moderation and yes, eat less exercise more is the right formula. Therein lie the trouble however with food in America, have you seen portion sizes lately?? We all have free will but when we are being trained as children that 10 oz or protein, or more, is a single serving, something is very wrong. Enjoy your pork chops and mac n cheese, but remember, no one ever was killed by a carrot.

  • Gita

    This isn’t about Paula nor is it about Jaimie. They are TV cooks. This is about southern cooking that served us well when we were agrarian, walked behind mules and worked off those high-calorie meals. We have not embraced a new, healthier cuisine. I mean, is there a reason that the green beans at Cracker Barrel are full of pork and fat? Now our region is suffused with diabetes, gout and acid reflux because we cook like 1755 and can’t say no to the Grand Slam at Denny’s.

  • http://muskokariver.blogspot.com Cathy Olliffe

    Actually, I almost choked on a carrot once.
    Just saying.

  • Ryn Cricket

    WOW, Michael, Spot on! And Jamie Oliver has been my hero since he was the Naked Chef. I also subscribe to the 100 years ago theory. We don’t eat anything that didn’t exist then. I’ll tell you what, we are way healthier than anyone I know.

  • http://www.ringkeeper.blogspot.com Laurita

    Excellent piece, Michael. We have the same problem here, especially in areas that are more isolated and therefore have limited access to fresh produce and such. Fatty foods are a staple. Fried bread dough tastes good, but can’t you just feel your arteries harden thinking about it?

  • Alex Kearns

    Standing ovation for your article, Michael. We are members of the same choir.

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