January 21, 2009

I miss my American diet

I’m not giving the South Beach diet another try till I get back to the states… but it’s a really good thing I made that decision. For every meal since I’ve gotten here, the table has been set with:
-A basket of bread (not whole wheat, either)
-A tub of butter
-A jar of Polish mayonnaise
-A platter of extremely high fat sliced meats (like, half the slice is marbled white fat)

I haven’t seen a fruit or veggie since arriving. Oh wait – yes, I have. It’s the one other dish on the table, whose name translates to “cold feet.” You take some carrots, dice them up, and them boil them with pigs’ feet until all the fat renders off into a white liquid. Then, you put it in the fridge until it solidifies. The result is a bowl of basically pure white fat with some carrots marbled in – you’re supposed to spread it on your bread. Thanks, but no thanks.

This morning there was something new on the table: a jar of strawberry jam. Out of habit, I glanced at the back of the jar, where there was no nutrition label, but there was an ingredient list. While I speak very little Polish, it didn’t take much to figure out what “syrop glukozowo-fruktozowy” is.


I guess it’s not just the US. I wonder if they have the propaganda “what do you mean, there’s something wrong with HFCS?” commercials here too?

(For a great response to those, watch this. I love, love, LOVE it!)

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24 thoughts on “I miss my American diet”

  1. Ugg, that happens to me whenever I go back to visit my dad. He lives in rural Iowa and everything is fried fried fried. Honest to god, I never knew you could fry SO much stuff.

  2. Haha that’s hilarious and SO reminds me of my trip to Germany last summer. Amazingly enough after eating like that for 10 days I didn’t gain or lose any weight, probably only because I was walking and biking so much!

  3. This happens to me everytime I travel back to Romania, and when I think back to my favorite dishes as a kid growing up there – liver, cow’s tongue, the medulla in the chicken’s neck, pure fat melted on bread. What is amazing to me is that, with this diet, romanians are much thinner on average than americans (thought rates of cardiovascular diseases are much higher).
    Travel safely.On the bright side, you’ll be all about fruits and real veggies when you get back home.
    Ana-Maria

  4. Uhh, I’d pass on that rendered fat/carrot combo as well.

    I DESPISE those corn syrup ads so thanks for that awesome spoof. The sad thing is a lot of people will just blindly think corn syrup is ok now.

  5. ah, ordering abroad 🙂 I remember being in Europe in 2000. My traveling companion was a vegetarian, so she was careful to learn “I’m a vegetarian” in as many languages as she could.

    I speak French, Spanish and a little German, so we were good most places, but then we got to Prague. The waiter and I tried to communicate in German, and Candace just stuck to her “safe phrase” to ensure she got vegetarian fare.

    and she did… an entire wheel of baked Brie!

    It WAS vegetarian, just perhaps not the healthy fare she may have liked! 🙂

  6. So envious of the travel, so not of the food. In terms of being able to eat healthy, food on the American coasts wins hands down over everything everywhere, and I always struggle with food when I go anywhere else! But post some photos of the sites (although I loved the jam!) I’ve always wanted to go to Helsinki!

  7. Yes! Let’s definitely try to meet up…hmmm? How do we do that? I plan to line up near the 4:15 pace group (though I am probably just going to try to keep 10 minute miles..no 4:20 group). My actual time may actually end up much slower, but I figure 10 min/miles is a good place to start!

  8. I’m getting to this late, but T (my lovely wife) and I have been doing a version of south beach for almost a year now. We really like it. We both have dropped about 20lbs and have kept it off.

    My favorite part is that you can drink as much liquor as you want without worrying about it blowing your diet. Wine and beer not so much, but straight liquor is fine (ie scotch, vodka, crown with diet coke… I might have a problem!)

    We have a cheat meal once a week or every couple weeks, but for the most part we just avoid starches and sugar. Anyway, I was glad to see someone else try it. We have a couple friends that are going on 2 years and they have both dropped 50lbs, and have kept it off. Glad your back home. Sorry for your loss.

  9. First, that dish sounds like death for your insides.

    Second, that nideo is hilarious, but not as funny as the HFCS/Nazi spoof that was next in line in the YouTube queue. What will You Tube think of next?

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