For once I am in complete agreement with an Obama. Michelle Obama was at the National Restaurant Association's fall board meeting where she was telling the restaurant industry to step up to the plate (the dinner plate?) and stop serving junk to our children and adults. Instead of serving fries with that, offer something healthier like carrots or apples. I actually agree with her. But it has to be something that the customer wants to order.
Side note, McDonald's does offer apples for their kids meals as an alternative to fries. They also offer milk as an alternative to soda. They have for years.
You can't turn "Fish N Chips" into "Fish N Apples Chips" or "Fish N Carrot Chips" although that does sound good. The last time we went to Long John Silvers their fish was so horrible, it made my stomach so heavy, I was on the crapper with cramps the rest of the day. The fries were the only thing that didn't make me feel like crap, it was the fish. I think they need to clean their oil.
She also suggested to switch white pasta with wheat pasta but how about this, how about Wacky Mac? Wacky Mac pasta is made out of vegetables. Why not go all the way and suggest they make their pasta out of vegetables? That would make much more sense than just wheat.
And why not suggest to offer baked fish and chicken as an alternative to fried in all restaurants? I use the George Foreman grill to make my boneless skinless chicken so I think that should be an alternative too.
The issue though is you cannot expect customers to ONLY eat the healthy alternative. If you tell them they must request fries then they WILL request fries all the time. You aren't going to force someone into eating healthy, that's the reason they are going out because they don't want to eat healthy.
I am not a vegetarian but lately I have been eating only vegetarian foods like Garden Burgers in place of chicken or any meat for that matter. And only eating salads or steamed veggies so I am certainly switching my attitude towards eating habits but that's me.
Since I am diabetic I have had to take a serious look at the foods that I eat so I lower not only my blood sugar but also my cholesterol. I haven't been going to fast food places or any restaurant for that matter. It's not fast food places, it's the restaurant industry as a whole that needs to change. I do agree with her 100% about that.
And by the way, the fish at fish n chips has more calories than the "chips" so if you are going to take the fries away you might as well take the fish away too because they are worse than the fries.
In the LA Times Blog there is another post about this but that post is so long, it would take forever for me to pick every little thing out to talk about so I'll just give you that link:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/09/michelle-obama-obesity-restaurant-menus.html
There are a couple of things I'd like to say about that one.
Quote:
"She, of course, has her own personal chef brought in from Chicago and took full parental responsibility for guiding her daughters' diets because parents are crucial habit-formers and role models, even in food choices."
This is what I'm always talking about. It's not the restaurants who need to make sure your kids eat right, it's you, the parent and if Michelle Obama is hiring a personal chef who knows what the right foods are to feed children then that's what she has to do to make sure her kids eat right. It's the parents responsibility to make sure you eat right, not the businesses. They are in business to feed people what taste good, not what tastes healthy.
There are businesses that are in business to feed us healthy foods and if you should want to eat out and eat healthy then go there instead.
Quote:
"She said she understood that healthy meals sell less, which is not a good thing for any business. But she said the problem of obesity is so great, it must be addressed urgently by all means."
YES! That is what I've been saying is wrong. It's not just restaurants that are giving us unhealthy foods for less but also the grocery store. It's cheaper to eat junk and it's way more expensive to eat healthy. Why is that? I think it's backwards. I think they need to reward you for eating healthy by selling the healthy foods for less money and penalize you for eating unhealthy by charging you more money.
Also, why is it that the diabetic foods are so expensive? They aren't helping my cause by making me pay up the wazoo to keep my blood sugar down. Also the vegetarian foods are so expensive.
There was one more thing. I think it was in the LA Times blog post saying restaurants aren't offering nutritional information for their guests. They certainly are! You can go to the website of any major restaurant and they have the nutrition information right in their website. Most of the time in PDF format. Some also have it posted on a bulletin board or they have pamphlets with all that information. So that is wrong, they do offer that.
Michelle Obama admitted Monday that she’s a "lover" of french fries and confessed that her daughters enjoy mac and cheese. But at the National Restaurant Association's fall board meeting, she asked restaurateurs to rethink the way they offer food in their eateries and implored them to provide more nutritious choices to both adults and kids.
Since Americans eat a third of their meals in restaurants, Obama asked the restaurateurs to add more healthful choices to their menus and provide customers with more information about what they’re eating.
“What I do know is that in the restaurant industry, creativity is your lifeblood,” Obama said at the Hyatt Regency before a packed crowd that included assistant White House chef Sam Kass. “It’s what sets you apart from the competition, and it keeps customers coming back for more. And today I am asking you to use that creativity to rethink the food you offer, especially dishes aimed at young people, and to help us make the healthier choice the easier choice.”
Obama told the professional foodies that she would like to see them use that creativity with children’s menus as well.
“I'm not asking any of you to make drastic changes to every single one of your recipes or to totally change the way you do business,” Obama said. “But what I am asking is that you consider reformulating your menu in pragmatic and incremental ways to create healthier versions of the foods that we all love.”
Obama suggested substituting wheat pasta for white pasta or cutting the amounts of butter and cream in recipes.
Read more at www.politico.com
“Or you could make healthy sides like apple slices or carrots the default choice in a menu and make fries something customers have to request — which would hurt me deeply,” the first lady said to laughter. “I'm a fry lover.”
