One Snarky Chica with Issues

Forbes has an interesting article on America’s unhealthiest grocery shoppers that I read today. Before even reading it I suspected that a lot of southern US cities would make the list. After spending most of my life living in the South I would not have been surprised if ALL of the cities were southern US cities.

You can see the full list of cities on Forbes.

The article that goes along with the list makes some interesting points. It suggests that we are more shaped by our environment that other things when it comes to how we eat. They use the example that a mother goes to the grocery store and buys the same foods that her mother and grandmother fed her, regardless of the health factor. Of course, this suggestion is not terribly surprising when you consider that regions of the US are known for certain types of foods.

I think the unspoken story here though could be on people that break free of that. You know, how do you overcome growing up in the South where breakfast consists of biscuits & gravy, eggs and bacon and your other meals consist of fried meats and buttery veggies? I grew up in the South eating like this. My mother still cooks like this. She even puts sugar on veggies when she cooks them! And let’s not even get started on that addictive beverage of sweet tea!

I no longer live in the South and have not for some time. Upon leaving the South I began discovering all sorts of foods that I had never tried - things that were not fried! These days when I go back home I cannot eat most of my mother’s cooking. I no longer enjoy things like green peas cooked with a tablespoon of sugar. I don’t need half of my plate to be covered in some type of meat any longer. In fact, I am a vegetarian.

However, I think that if I had stayed in that region that my eating habits might not have changed. And I wonder how many people that stay in regions like this do make the change in diet?