Eating Wrong
Posted on July 29th, 2008 by Tariq Nelson
Because so many of us eat strictly for taste, the diet of black Americans is generally terrible. I recently had a physical and - thank God -
Filed under: Bad Culture, Health, Practical Solutions
Part of the problem is that people who eat healthy tell those who do not what NOT to eat, but hardly ever give an alternative.
My problem is that I want to eat healthy but my will power sucks. Majorly. I don’t get chastised by my immediate family. In fact, just about everyone (except oldest sister) knows that we need to really watch what we eat. Problem is I love sweets. I love dessert. I’ve given up soda for about three weeks now and I still crave it. The only reason I gave it up is because my husband said I could last without it for a month. If I give up all of the sweets, I’m going to be so cranky.
Not to mention eating healthy is expensive and really hard if you live in the hood and have a husband who is more about the saving the last dollar than eating really healthy. I just graduated from college, I don’t have a job yet, my husband works a low paying job. I can’t afford the organic stuff at the mainstream markets most of the time (when I do shop there) nor can I afford to shop at Farmer Joe’s or Whole Foods. And the farmer markets aren’t that cheap either. I do what I can. I eat poultry most of the time, I buy frozen veggies that won’t go bad if I don’t cook them right away, stuff like that. I do wish that when we have these conversation though that we would acknowledge that eating healthy is just as much about class as it is about our attitudes and willpower.
I meant to say my husband said I *couldn’t last a month without soda.
Faith makes an excellent point you will find the most unhealthy crap in your neighborHOOD grocery store. Although if you try really hard you can find healthier alternatives most of the good stuff is sold in upper class neighborhoods. However I think it’s more about a lifestyle choice sometimes we might spend 120.00 on a pair of kicks but put the worst crap in our bodies. We have to start seeing through the B.S. and stop making excuses if we want to eat healthy we will it is a matter of how we align our priorities.
I was an intern for a non-profit run by a Muslim sister working on bringing healthy food to East Oakland. Food availability is a big problem. You could go miles without seeing a decent grocery store.Sad thing is that the Yemeni grocers syndicate is not really interested in bringing groceries and produce to the inner city. They cell garbage and lots of cheap liquor. Its a big problem for the poor and elderly who don’t have a care to get to a decent grocery store, let alone an earthy crunchy place like Whole foods.
I think I agree with the general consensus here. Eating healthy is expensive and depending where you are, hard to achieve. At least Keith, in his article, gives some substituion ideas. That’s more than you can say for a lot of healthy-eaters who can make a book out of what-not-to-eat…
Us white folks eat garbage food as well.
I have a running argument with my brother about the food we eat or choose not to eat.
He is 36 yrs old, has always had a six-pack, doesn’t exercise and can eat whatever he wants.
I, on the other hand, was ‘husky’ as a kid, blow up on bread, potatoes, ice cream, cakes, pie (you get the point) and work out every day ….all this just to keep the extra love handle fat at bay.
“Because so many of us eat strictly for taste…”
That is one of the biggest problems. We have become hedonistic about our food intake when food is meant for fuel, not pleasure. Sure, sometimes it can serve both roles. But the problem is that we would prefer foods that give pleasure to foods that are a healthy meals of fuel for our bodies basic functions.
Up until 10 years ago, I haven’t always eaten healthy. I wasn’t big on eating vegetables. Older age and being anemic cased me to adopt it a little more. I also find myself growing bored of some foods.
These days, I’m eating less meat( as a result of my boredom of some forms of food) and more veggie dishes. I still love my meat. I’ve always eaten a lot of chicken and fish. and up until 7 years ago, I stopped eating pork( a death of a man’s severely high blood pressure resulting from eating a lot of bacon changed my mind about it) Far as my chicken dishes, I still eat Soul Food, but on a healthier scale. I eat baked chicken and in collard greens( which I just tolerate. I’m not fond of it .), turkey is used opposed to fat backs. I ‘m also trying to eat less carbs. I ‘ve seen some major improvements with my inner being. I haven’t felt sluggish in years. I no longer feel that I’m going to pass out . I have a lot more energy as an older woman, than I did in my younger years. It’s supposed to be the other way around.
While it’s good that people are getting in check with their health, I just hate that it had to take these many years to do it. Our country loves to boast about their ” great ” diet, but have a terrible one. We live in a junk food society, at least in recent years it has became one. Processed foods is the norm.During their years, my grandparents and their peers ate far healthier. They would boast about eating chickens that they raised( my aunt) themselves, veggies they grew in their gardens and drunk more water. Everything was homemade . You could never get them to eat fast food.
Even some of these so called medical experts seems confused about healthy eating. One minute, they’ll say this is healthy and the next they’ll tell that there is a problem with it. I was looking at sample of one of my nephews school lunches. Although they, like every other school district is supposed to meet nutrition guidelines, I just didn’t see anything healthy about them. Their lunches seemed to consist mostly of a lot of starches in it and in general foods that I can only describe as mysterious and to me, unhealthy. I’ve seen more junk in their menus than anything. In general, school lunches can be quite nasty , but at least when I was going, I did see the four food groups in my tray.
I have noticed that a lot of people, especially indigenous, in other countries that do not consume processed foods and basically eat from the land tend to live healthier lives and not have the same health issues that we suffer from (cancer, diabetes, and stroke).
Even though they have their own health issues, most are not the foods related. I seriously think that processed foods, even those that are deemed
I stopped eating fried chicken(chicken in general) two years ago. Getting tired of the strange looks I get after telling people.
Indigoblu,
I agree. Most of their dishes a well balanced. That is why I don’t get it when the medical experts down their diets? How can they say that those countries have bad diets? They eat a of veggies, rice( depending on whose country), meat, but it
may consist of chicken or fish. Some of them are not even keen on desserts. I cannot blame some countries who want to oppose fast food restaurants being in their countries. Notice how some of them bring up their health part into play. I cannot blame them for it.
I don’t trust anything the FDA has to say. I don’t like the idea of having cloned foods, hormone altered milk. It’s troubling. They approve of products that may do us more harm than good. For example, doctors often say that too much hormone usage can increase a person’s chance of developing cancer. The FDA put hormones into the milk, but they say we have nothing to worry about. That has got to be the ultimate contradiction.
Far as these health food stores, The FDA are slowly trying to find problem with some of those products as well. It’s really getting to point where we may as well starve ourselves because they( The FDA and medical experts) seem to have nothing better to do than to find problems with everything.
Funny you should bring this up. I was overweight myself for years due to my wife’s good cooking (she’s Japanese, I’m white) and tried all the diets, exercises that never lasted long, etc.
Then recently I moved to Ireland on a temporary work contract and I’ve nearly lost 10 pounds already. I went from 232 to 222 this morning in about 6 weeks. I think the big reason is that here I walk a lot more than I did before. In Dublin, the roads aren’t very good and you can’t rely on mass transportation as much, so you just have to walk and walk and walk.
The other thing is the quality of food. The food is all the same as in the US (even down to burgers, pizza and such), but the food tastes better, less sugar and less greasy. The portions are normal, just the food is better. I think the EU banned partially-hydrogenated oils and such because they’re just so bad for you but the US hasn’t caught on.
Food for thought I guess. The US, being a “car-culture” and having such bad-quality food just isn’t conducive for people to lose weight. It’s not will-power as much as being immersed in a bad environment.
I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I think people are, far too often, trusting of the government
Salam alaikoum
I agree that there is a quality issue (I can’t stand the produce in the US) but I often wonder how much portion size in the US has to do with it. I have seen a lot of Americans “eat healthy” but portion sizes are ginormous. I am a “big girl” by European standards and when I go home, it is impossible for me to eat a restaurant portion, I wind up sharing with whoever will share with me. Even when people make the change to healthy eating there also has to be a re-education about how much food is enough.
Maybe it depends on the metro area you live in–though I agree in general many times the food choices in the hood tend to be dismal, and more expensive than the same stuff elsewhere. But it’s important to note that “healthy” eating doesn’t necessarily meaning buying all of your food from the God-awfully expensive organic aisle or supermarket. And I think many of us forget or don’t realize how much more expensive processed convenience foods are next to raw foods that may require you to do a little work.
We grew up poor and not super strict when it came to diet, but thankfully–and I think this is key too–my mother and extended family instilled some good habits in terms of diet that still follow me and my siblings to this day. My mother was VERY frugal, a single mother feeding 5 kids–and oftimes extras–but she always had lots of fruits and veggies in the house. We drank a lot of water out of necessity–juice/kool-aid just cost more so it wasn’t always available. We ate fried stuff and sweets too–but exclusively and so there was a balance. My great grandmother was a master gardener masha’Allah, so that helped. One of my uncles was big on consuming less red meat and being extremely active way before it was vogue to do so–he skiied, swam, played racquetball, ran, you name it, and he took the time to expose us to many of these activities as well.
I think if you have kids the single most important thing you can do is to develop a love and appreciation for healthy food and exercise from the door, and they will continue into adulthood insha’Allah. The problem is multi-faceted, but I think a lot of us think a certain way about food and we just tend to fall back on what we know.
As Muslims I think we should realize that of course it takes will power, but if we are converts, then the same mechanism by which we learned to stop eating pork, eating halal, or what have you, we have some practice, it’s just a matter of taking it to the next level. And just like with general Islamic practice, it’s best to take change one step at a time. Overhauling your whole diet at once doesn’t usually work in the long run.
Small steps like substituting canned veggies (which are more processed and often contain extra sodium) for fresh or frozen–cutting back on the amount of salt we pour over food slowly, etc, can go a long way. Incorporating one or two healthy habits at a time is better than nothing and insha’Allah is a wonderful place to start.
One trick. Many years ago a brother giving a talk about health habits told the audience a neat little trick, which worked well for me. I used to put a bunch of salt on my food–and he said that if you want to cut back on this just try putting a small bit of salt on the tip of your tongue before starting your meal–instead of sprinkling it on your food. Your palate will have the salt taste on it and you have just cut out a bunch of sodium that you didn’t actually have to consume.
I did this and it really worked. After a while the craving for the taste decreased and eventually I didn’t even need to do it anymore.
This article is very interesting and equally informative.
FYI:
http://www.chekinstitute.com/articles.cfm?select=42