This is the first of a two-part discussion on convenience foods, sometimes referred to as fast foods. First what exactly is a convenience food. It is any pre-packaged food prepared by a member of the vast American food-industrial complex (my term). It can be anything from pancake mixes in boxes, to frozen TV dinners, to the "Big Mac" at McDonald's, to foods prepared by the food industry for resale in restaurants and cafeterias. A common characteristic of these foods is that they appeal to our taste and satisfy our hunger. This is no accident but to understand why this is so we need to go back and look at our own evolution. When our species was still foraging in the wild we were better off when we found foods high in caloric content - more than we needed at the moment so we could store the unused calories for use during a period of decreased plenty or famine. We evolved to recognize these foods on the tongue and to prefer them. That is humans inherited a preference for high-energy foods, reflected today in our "sweet tooth" and in our love of ice cream or to be more direct, for sugar and fat. Now add some salt to spice things up and wow - it tastes great! These biological facts have not gone unnoticed by the food scientists that dream up the concoctions we know as convenience foods. They know that sugar, fat and salt sell. Now for the food industry what is really important is that sugar, fat and salt is very, very cheap so my putting lots of these basic ingredients in their products they have foods they can sell inexpensively and still have enormous profits.
So what's the problem with cheap food rich in sugar, fat and salt? The problem is they are unhealthy. By eating so much convenience food we are preparing our bodies for the famine that never comes, so we grow larger, and still larger until we begin to overload our systems. The results is a national epidemic of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and hypertension. One of the insidious side effects of so much unhealthy cheap food is that as we go down the socioeconomic latter we see more and more disease. Yet it does not have to be this way. It is a problem of education - we must not listen to those TV ads. Of course, someone with limited income would look for the best way to spend his/her dollar. However, health does not come from eating more calories but from eating the proper calories. Consider the energy cost of foods. One dollar will buy 1,200 calories of potato chips or 875 calories of a soda. The same dollar could also buy 250 calories of carrots or 170 calories of fruit juice from concentrate. I submit that the latter diet would serve the individual better and as a side effect he/she would avoid all the other stuff found in convenience food. In part II, we will consider exactly what is in convenience foods. If you think this discussion might not pertain to Broadmead residents just consider the fact that many of the entrees served in our dining room are convenience foods.
Reference: The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan; The Penguin Press, 2006.