We eat a lot in America.  In fact we eat so much the rest of the world is taking notice.

As a young child in Queens we were welcomed to our new apartment by a friendly Jewish family who lived upstairs.  We’d share meals during each others Holidays and I well remember watching our meals prepared by hand from appetizer to desert.  And there were generous servings of veggies and a starch or two to offset the meat.  While there was plenty of fast food, it was more of a “sometimes” thing. And I have to admit, I appreciated that juicy burger every couple of weeks.

In the mid-70’s when we moved to North Carolina the difference in food and eating were immediately noticeable.  There was more food for dinner (it was cheaper but less variety was available), fried foods were the norm and fast foods played a much larger role than we experienced in New York.  And during Holidays it was not uncommon to find four meats on the dinner table in which three of them came from various parts of the pig!

Flash forward to 2011 and we seem to be eating more than ever.  In fact, Americans throw away more food in a day than most people in many Countries consume in a week. We super-size everything from our morning coffee to our evening meals.  America has an eating problem and it’s getting worse.

A Canadian physician Dr. Kevin Patterson, recently published a book called “Consumption” inspired in part by his work in an emergency combat hospital in Afghanistan.  In the book Patterson describes his experience operating on persons of various cultures.

“Typical Afghan civilians and soldiers would have been 140 pounds or so as adults. And when we operated on them, what we were aware of was the absence of any fat or any adipose tissue underneath the skin,” Patterson says. “Of course, when we operated on Canadians or Americans or Europeans, what was normal was to have most of the organs encased in fat. It had a visceral potency to it when you could see it directly there.”

Dr. Patterson also goes on to note that many diseases such as type II diabetes didn’t exist 70 or 80 years ago.  He blames their rise directly from obesity, especially the accumulation of “abdominal fat”.

What’s frightening is people of other Countries are beginning to emulate our eating habits with results that are causing concern. The magazine “New African” recently reported on Countries with emerging middle-class populations including Nigeria and South Africa.  In these and other emerging economies people are shunning their “indigenous” millets and grains for imported rice from places like China.  This is becoming a problem in many areas because the local foods contain properties that build up resistance to regional diseases.  By importing foods, they’re actually opening themselves up to illnesses that would normally not affect them.  And with “meat” a sign of status, Africans are consuming more flesh with their meals than at any time in their history.  This has ushered in high blood pressure, gout and other ailments that were formally rare in many areas of the African Diaspora.

It should not take our President and his wife to beg us to eat and feed our children better.  In researching my own eating habits and talking with those who study eating as it relates to our health there are a few pointers everyone seems to agree on.

*Lower your portions (eating less is the hardest part but pushing away from the table is important).

*Eat more raw and lightly cooked veggies.

*Your serving of meat should be no bigger than your first (provided you have a normal sized hand).

*Make fried foods and deserts a “sometimes” treat.

*Cut your salt intake and remove the salt-shaker from your table today!

*Limit alcohol consumption. (if you must, red wine or sangria are the healthiest).

*Exercise daily even if it’s just a walk.  You can join a gym but your eating habits must change as well or your results will be limited.

*As grandma used to say; “the whiter the bread the quicker you’re dead”.  More whole wheat and grains including your pastas, pancakes, etc will make a difference.

I can’t stand the thought of losing another friend or colleague to a stoke or heart attack in their 30’s.  It’s time we get this eating problem under control (yours truly included).