super sized

[papaver]

I personally think the idea that buying healthy is more expensive is a myth..... granted there are places where the supply of veggies is dismal to non-existent, but that's a different problem.

You just have to pick and choose your veggies carefully - Cabbage, sweet potatoes, carrots, greens - yes! healthy, cheap, plentiful and filling. Just avoid the "specialty veggies" unless they are on sale and it really not very expensive at all. If you cut a lot of meat from your diet, it gets even cheaper - meat is super expensive, beans and tofu not at all - even canned beans are cheap, cheap, cheap compared to meat. When you think about how little you get with a freezer meal - there's no comparison to what is less expensive...

You know what the problem with veggies is? You have to clean and cook them. For a lot of people it's a waste of time. It's easier to open a pack and throw the content it in a frying pan... Second problem, young kids are not so keen on veggies, so the parents aren't even bothered to give them vegetables...

It has a lot to do with lazyness...

[gilly]

11 years ago I went to SF on business. When the girls collected me from the airport they took me to dinner. They recommended and so I ordered a burger, I couldn't believe the size! I think I ate around a 1/4 of the burger and not much of anything else on the plate - two weeks later the took me to the same place, I ate 3/4 of the burger !! I decided it was very definitely time to go home

During my stay there I was taken to lunch and dinner a lot! I was impressed by the fact that you could order one meal and two plates, and was really impressed by the fact that almost every meal I went to with colleagues, one of them would ask for the leftovers to be wrapped to take home - unheard of here.

All in all, no matter what the restaurant serve, it's personal choice in the end, as to how much of it you eat

[shootingstar]

You know what the problem with veggies is? You have to clean and cook them. For a lot of people it's a waste of time. It's easier to open a pack and throw the content it in a frying pan... Second problem, young kids are not so keen on veggies, so the parents aren't even bothered to give them vegetables...

It has a lot to do with lazyness...

Methinks this is part of the problem, is taking time to clean and cut veggies instead of just precut veggies (but better than no veggies) and fast food options. It does require considerable time and patience for any parent to encourage their children to eat veggies in the beginning. But once used it, they will eat them without thinking nor commenting with dislike, etc.

I read somewhere one shouldn't take their children grocery shopping because they will ask for unhealthy stuff, etc. When they are very young, it's probably not great (though not impossible).

But I disagree...this is how I learned about pricing, choosing veggies, fruits and meats at the store, from my mother, when I accompanied her ..more often to carry the groceries or pull buggy cart behind because we didn't have a car the whole of my teen years. Granted, children must be initially disciplined at the beginning, to even begin to take them shopping maybe after age 7-8 yrs.

of course from a good nutrition standpoint, my mother had good approaches/choices to pass on to kiddies. Not all parents are like this.

No, we were not vegetarian. Just...poor. The thought of buying fast food or alot of processed food was something not considered much at all, because of lack of income. yea, sure the processed food we had as kids were: Cheez Whiz, cheese slices, baloney, sliced ham, wieners and dried pasta.

It also MIGHT make a difference on home diet, if a family member worked in a restaurant. Which my father did for his whole working life. Yes, he would comment about reused oil for deep frying, amount of oil for frying, etc. It certainly influenced how much he wanted healthier food at home.

So I also agree with Eden, that being poor, can still mean eating healthy, but the onus lies on the home food cooks to make an effort to prepare food properly, think of/find recipes that are healthier. Latter also takes time and experimentation,..which some people don't want to but some people seem to lack..imagination..and risk in their cooking styles.

[wildhawk]

I have spent most of my life obsessing about my weight/diet. When I started biking, I started thinking about food as fuel. And then with the wakeup call regarding my heart/cholesterol and having two stents put in, I got very serious about it. DH and are eat mostly organic, heart healthy recipes and it really is inexpensive to cook healthier alternatives once you get the hang of it. We have saved a lot not eating out - we go to one locally owned restaurant and they cook our meal to our specifications - we look forward to our once-a-week eatout at our favorite place! The rest of the week I cook our meals - that way I can control what and how much we eat and keep the food healthy. I still have a long way to go to get to my ideal weight, but I feel 100% better!

[MomOnBike]

As for teaching your children to eat the veggies, somehow I managed. Having an enormous garden helped. I told the girls that they could have anything at anytime from the garden, so they helped themselves. I did, of course, point out which parts to eat, and what, like tomato leaves, are bad for them, but other than that they had free rein.

As a result of this, my (then) 3 year old asked if we could get cauliflower plants for the garden because "I like cauliflower every now and then."

The other result of this policy is that I never managed to serve peas at the table. We (I was not entirely blameless here, either) just ate them standing in the garden.

All that aside, fresh veggies take TIME, something that a person working multiple jobs just does not have. I do wish it were easier to eat well.

[papaver]

I'm longing for my vegetable garden... hmmm... as from next week, I can start planting stuf... for the very first time in my new garden... yahoo!

[Crankin]

I didn't eat fresh veggies until I was in my 20's... Not that my mom didn't serve them, but the ones I could eat without gagging were rare. My older son, as an adult finally eats salads and a lot of veggies, but as a kid, he actually would puke if he tried to swallow a vegetable. I tried hiding them in other foods, but that didn't work. I quit worrying about it, since he ate fruit. It took some vegetarian friends to introduce him to new things.
Huge ice cream scoops are a tradition in New England, particularly at local farm stand ice cream places. This is not a new phenomena. I always order a kiddie size, on the rare occasions I eat regular ice cream. Usually I go for soft serve, made with skim milk, kiddie size.

[Selkie]

Just my opinion, but one does not have to clear off one's plate. The solution is to eat what you want and then, either ask for a doggy bag or let them toss out the rest.

People have to be responsible for taking care of themselves. I've been part of the working poor - worked retail management, long hours that precluded cooking "healthy" meals, on a tight food budget, etc. However, I didn't eat a bunch of junk food.

[Trek420]

You know what the problem with veggies is? You have to clean and cook them. For a lot of people it's a waste of time. It's easier to open a pack and throw the content it in a frying pan...

What? Besides being fun to do (I <3 to prep vegies) opening and disposing of all the packaging takes me longer than almost any prep. Give me a French knife and a cutting board and I'll make salsa almost as fast as you can open the jar

Have you ever been given the hairy eye-ball by the waitstaff for sharing a dessert after a meal? The arched eyebrow of:
"we'll split the cheesecake"
"we'll bring you two cheesecakes"
"no, no, just bring two plates, we'll fight it out who gets the last bite"
"but don't you both want ..."
"do we look like we want two desserts"
"well no but most people"
"do we look like we neeeeeeed to cut back on dessert"
"well no, it's just ..."