Well, harking back to WWII rations is one way to fight childhood obesity:
Children are getting a taste of the frugal 50s as rationing returns - in the local sweet shop. Parents write a daily allowance in the 1950s-style ration books and children get them stamped at Hope and Greenwood in East Dulwich, south-east London. Owner Kitty Hope said the idea was introduced after she was asked to stop selling so many sweets to children.
On this side of the pond, though, we're surrounded by foods for which there just isn't a healthy daily allowance:
When Becky Cleaveland is out with her girlfriends, they all pick at salads except for the petite Atlanta woman. She tackles the "Hamdog." The dish, a specialty of Mulligan's, a suburban bar, is a hot dog wrapped by a beef patty that's deep fried, covered with chili, cheese and onions and served on a hoagie bun. Oh, yeah, it's also topped with a fried egg and two fistfuls of fries.
"The owner says I'm the only girl who can eat a whole one without flinching," Cleaveland said proudly.
When a diner is proud of finishing a dish that could have fed an entire family of Brits during WWII, you know that we've got a ways to go towards tackling the issue of obesity.
...nutritionists have found it's hard to teach an old region new tricks. How can Southerners give up delicious staples fried chicken, fried seafood, fried green tomatoes and cornbread slathered in butter?
One way to do this - the one I followed - is to avoid learning how to prepare these meals, and then move out of the South. If I still lived at home - or if I cooked as well as my sister does - I'd If you can manage to stop eating it for a while, you'll lost your taste for all that fat. The last time I ate a really Southern meal (cornbread, porkchops, fried squash, fried okra, black-eyed peas and rice - all of which were cooked with butter and pork fat), I felt a tad nauseated afterwards.
Posted by kswygert at February 15, 2005 09:38 AM