Once upon a time....

I just had a big piece of delicious Rice Crispies (cooked rice covered in melted marshmallows), before which I had a bowl of milk and cereals and pilaf with vegetables. I am still feeling discontent after eating all this variety, not so much because I did not have enough to eat, but because it is not a balanced diet. In general, the food being served at our dining halls is becoming nutritious day-by-day, but it is easy to gain weight if you do not make good food choices.

Obesity is a big concern in U.S. and above 50% of the population is dealing with obesity-related health problems in this country. Well, meet the culprit of obesity and the victim of industrialization: CORN. Yeah, as strange as it sounds, U.S. produces enormous amounts of corn, way more than what it needs. The result? Corn is pretty darn cheap and is put to all possible uses. Starting with high fructose corn syrup found in 99% of all packaged foods to corn oil to baked corn sold in tin cans, corn is all over the grocery store aisles. Corn has a very high fat content and is bad in very concentrated forms. But there is hardly anything you can eat that does not have abundant quantities of corn. A lot of preparations and fast-foods or packaged foods sold in U.S. are sweet, and are made with high fructose corn syrup. Even cattle is fed with corn instead of grass and hay, so milk and meat are fattier too, making corn omnipresent in food!!

Illinois, the state in which I live, is the largest producer of corn in U.S., and is using excessive corn to make ethanol as a mixture for fuel in cars and automobiles. The efficiency of burning ethanol is very debatable, but it does burn clean and not pollute the environment.

But corn is not the only thing that is wrong about the diet of this country. I personally don't think most natives eat healthy because their diets are not balanced. Fast food like burgers, hotdogs, pizza, pasta, french fries, cakes, chocolates, cookies, corn tortillas, etc doesnot sound too healthy. I prefer complete Indian thalis with rice, dal(proteins), chapatis, vegetables, curd (plain yogurt) and salad, made with love. I can sense a restlessness to go back back to my mom's cooking. I shall end this post here with the following words ringing in my head "Oh home, I miss thee :-("