These are strange results I thought the quality of food on both sides is too processed and unhealthy but who knows the Americans eat a lot of doughnuts that contain large amounts of trans fatty acids (the FDA wants their amount written on the food packaging from this year or the next).
I have never been to the USA so I don't know how stressful life is in the states but there is is no free hospital system there.
Better off Poor in UK than Rich in US!
by Seeker4 65 Replies latest jw friends
-
greendawn
-
juni
Greendawn, hi
Stressful? Very fast pace. Hurry, hurry, hurry.
A lot of people aren't home much as they are running around w/their kids taking them to this sport practice/game or doing something organized. Others aren't content to just enjoy the simple pleasures. Have to be running somewhere.
It's a rat race here - unless you decide to jump off the wheel and take a breather.
Juni
-
ballistic
It's a rat race here - unless you decide to jump off the wheel and take a breather.
I live in England and I have sooooo... jumped off , you wouldn't believe it.
-
KW13
^^
ballistic has mc donalds every day, tucks his tracksuit bottoms into his socks, wears nike trainers.
he's a CHAV
-
ballistic
he's a CHAV
Yeah right! (not)You'd know if I was a chav 'cas Id B TYPIN LIKE DIS IN TXT SPK SO U WD UNDSTND ME OK! C U L8ER
-
KW13
ic wot u mean. l8r
-
Spectrum
Ever since Mcdonalds parked on our door step the diet of the UK has gone down the pan. The British diet is all about cheap trans acid ridden oils, high sugar content in everything that contains sugar, low veg and fruit.
Women's attitude has also changed, they no longer like the kitchen and as a result don't provide nutritious meals for their children. The crap I see some mothers feed their children is unbelievable.
Proper diets are found in the Mediterranean along with longer healthier lives. Women from the Mediterranean especially from North Africa still consider it their role to provide nutritional food for their families. I'm talking about secular and highly educated women with a mind of their own. -
serendipity
Hi Spectrum,
It's both parents responsibility to make sure the kids eat nutritious foods. There's the commitment to buy the food, the money to buy it, the preparation and setting a good example by eating it. My dad supported the first three, but drew the line at wheat germ cereal and other healthy foods. IF he rejected the food, that gave us kids a reason to do so as well.
Then there's the kids' willingness. My daughter would rather starve than eat vegetables. I had to accept that she would only eat a few veggies she liked, and those had to be doused liberally with ranch dressing. There was no way she was going to eat cauliflower or cabbage.
I never would have guessed how hard it is to get a kid to eat healthy food. Definitely easier said than done.
-
Seeker4
Fast food IS cheap in the US. With the $1 menu at most fast food restaurants, you can get a couple of burgers/sandwiches, an order of fries, a soda and still get change back from a $5 bill. It's fat-filled and delicous! Who can resist??
Here are a few things I do to save money on healthy food.
There's a locally owned store chain (I use that loosely, as they have only 3 stores) that specializes in meat. Every few weeks you can buy chicken breasts at 10 pounds for $1.69 a pound - I grab that, repackage it in smaller amounts and freeze it. Whole chickens this week at this store are 79 cents a pound. They often sell frozen, boxed fish at $15 for a 5-pound box. I grab that. Lori prefers dark chicken meat - legs and thighs - and they will sometimes have that at 69 cents a pound and even lower (as low as 39 cents a pound!!). I'll buy a ton of that for her (figuratively, of course!). Canned tuna is often on sale, 10 cans for $10 is not unusual.
Vegetables can be expensive, but some can easily be grown, especially salad greens, even in small containers. Having a windowsill of fresh growing herbs - rosemary, thyme, scallions, basil - is a wonderful resource when cooking, and costs next to nothing to grow. The plants just produce and produce and produce. Some of the best vegetables for you - spinach, broccoli, carrots, squash, garlic, onions - are fairly inexpensive here in the US, and I live in the Northeast. Use olive oil or no-calorie sprays to cook with.
Frozen berries (blueberries and strawberries have considerable health benefits) are nearly as nutritious as fresh berries, and relatively inexpensive. A few spoonfuls thrown into a breakfast oatmeal or fat free yogurt is delicious, low calorie and very good for you.
I also am fanatical about reading labels, checking calorie content, how many carbs, how much protein and fiber. You can easily cut hundreds of calories a day by knowing which products to buy and which to avoid. A multi-grain, high fiber slice of bread may have 100 calories less than some other breads. Just think what that saves you in just one sandwich!
I love certain comfort foods. Spaghetti with tomato sauce is one, but most pasta is dreadfully high in empty calories and low in good nutrition. I recently discovered spaghetti squash. A 4-ounce serving of spaghetti squash has less than 40 calories! Checking labels last week, I found a very low carlorie pre-made tomato sauce. Last night I had two large servings of spaghetti squash with tomato sauce which was full of really good stuff and totalled less than 300 calories. The same meal with the usual pasta and sauce would have been over 1000 calories - especially if I'd thrown in a little garlic bread! If I'd had a salad I probably wouldn't have needed the extra helping, and would have had an even better meal.
When you think about it, how many different foods do we regularly eat? While you might think hundreds, it's much more likely around 20 or even less. Using myself as an example, I usually have either eggs in some sort of omelet or hot, multi grain cereal for breakfast. For lunch it's normally leftovers from dinner or a sandwich for lunch - sliced turkey or tunafish are the most common. For dinner it's usually meat and a salad, sometimes with whole grain rice or potatoes. Mashed potatoes are another comfort food. Love 'em.
If you take the time to research it, whatever your particular core of favorite meals are, you can likely find much healthier and lower calorie versions. Just watching which dressing you put on a salad can save 100 calories easily. Using Splenda instead of sugar can avoid lots of empty calories, as can drinking water with a squeeze of lemon or lime instead of most other drinks. Salsa has tons of flavor, as does mustard or dijon, but very few calories. Dill pickles have almost no calories, but loads of flavor (and salt!! use caution). I love franks and beans mixed together. Last week I found a way to enjoy that meal at about 1/4 of the calories it typically costs me.
A terrific resource on-line is Hungry Girl. Just Google it. She has dozens on dozens of ways of making your favorite meals with lots less calories. She shows how to make a favorite Taco Bell meal at home, only changing it from 13 Weight Watcher points to just three! Yeah baby, that's what I'm talking about!
I love food, I love cooking and I love eating. I don't want that to be detrimental to my life, but one of the great pleasures of my life - both for how I feel and how fit and healthy I am. I don't want food to make me fat, I want it to be part of what makes me fit. Yet I live in a country where this is a huge issue. A really fit person in the US is a rarity. I know a LOT of people, and I live in a part of the country where exercise and fitness are a part of the culture. But the number of really fit people I know is terribly small.
That just simply shouldn't be the case.
S4
-
Spectrum
Serendipity,
I glad to see that you try and are aware of this, I think that you are in the minority.
In the UK there is an excellent nutritionist who has developed creative ways of feeding children vegetables and it actually works.
The other system is let them starve and they'll eat anything. In my day we ate what we got and no complaining, maybe we too soft on our kids today.
With dressings stick to first cold press olive oil with a little lemon or pure butter.