As everyone who knows me knows, I studied abroad in Italy this past summer. Before I left, people kept telling me, “you’re going to gain so much weight when you’re there, the food is soooo good!” I just decided so be it, I wasn’t going to restrict myself with food, after all, I wasn’t going to be there for long. I could tell you a lot about my time there and why it was one of the best five weeks of my life, but today we’re going to talk about food. I ate such good food over there. And get this; I lost 20 lbs. Now I wasn’t trying to lose weight or gain weight, I just ate when and what I wanted and enjoyed la dolce vita (the sweet life). I don’t think people should focus on this aspect of life; trying to lose or gain weight, we should just aim to be healthy.
Italian (Mediterranean food in general), is not only delicious, but it’s good for you. The Mediterranean diet consists of lots of fish, olive oil, vegetables (fresh) pasta, and WINE. What it doesn’t have a lot of is fillers, GMOs, preservatives, extra coloring, and other garbage. So, yes I ate pasta, gelato, and wine everyday, but yes I lost weight. The walking everywhere probably helped as well… I wish that the American diet consisted more of simple, healthy ingredients and not the processed stuff that is so bad for us. It kills me when people decide to be “vegan” for health reasons or cut out all carbs or what have you. I think we shouldn’t just cut things cold turkey or eliminate all carbs from our diet because we need a variety of nutrients. Of course, its different if you are allergic or intolerant, and it’s ultimately up to each person anyway because diet is a personal choice. But here’s the thing, I think that no one is really gluten intolerant (except people with celiac disease). The reason people are suddenly so sensitive to gluten is because we add so much trash to all wheat products now. I know plenty of people who are gluten intolerant here in the states and have no problem in other countries.
Another thing I want to address is not having money to eat well. I was very poor growing up, and my mother and father still made it a priority to feed us good food. My mom used a technique she learned in the Dominican Republic of making rice, and making beans by soaking them in a pot with a hambone from pork we’d eaten earlier and adding spices and some vegetables. We would eat that a few times a week, and that meal has all the main food groups and costs literally cents per person. If we started adopting food techniques from other parts of the world we could actually save a lot of money, and start being healthier. Food is so expensive. And we waste so much. I think we should stock up on essentials like rice, beans, whole grain pasta, and canned tomatoes (to make our own sauce). We should shop for other things we need on a day-to-day basis that way we aren’t wasting and thus we are saving money.
The point is, food is a gift. It’s a pleasure of life. Americans don’t eat right and that is a fact. Our food commodification is whack and our proportions are screwed up. We can’t change everything, but we can take little steps to adapt our diet to what is good for our bodies, and our wallets. Let’s eat like the rest of the world eats, because America, we aren’t doing it right.
