For the first time in human history, around the world, overweight people outnumber the undernourished. In BBC News online last week, it was reported somewhat ominously:

[University of North Carolina Professor Barry Popkin] said the “burden of obesity”, with its related illnesses, was also shifting from the rich to the poor, not only in urban but in rural areas around the world.

“The burden of obesity”? Like most white, middle-class Americans, I’ve never not had enough to eat. The most hunger I’ve experienced is between a skipped breakfast and a late lunch. No other class of folk . . .

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I just bought some M & Ms, which I don’t think I’ve done since I was… Well, I don’t ever remember buying myself a bag of M & Ms, but I assume I have before. I mean, a small bag of M & Ms for myself, not some giant bag I throw into a bowl for a party and never look at again, except when I mindlessly stick my hand in it later and insert the M & Ms into my mouth without looking at them or remembering I did it. On those rare occasions, I could be throwing a handful . . .

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A recent study shows that there’s an increasing tendency of overweight babies, and this is something that parents should really be worried about. Apparently, at six months, there’s a chance you’ve already been slated to be overweight through adolescence and adulthood.

Is 21st century culture too obsessed with weight/nutrition (3 out of my last five posts have been about food and weight) or are we, as a group, so lackadasical about fitness that we’re now endangering the truly innocent?

I hate cooking.  It’s the whole organizational aspect of it–you have to have the green pepper chopped up and ready to go once the garlic has softened, you have to stir-fry it for five minutes (God help you if you skip out to pee and come back a minute late), and when you’re done you have to clean up the mess.  Pass.  For our first few months together my roommate thought I was a druggie because I hardly ate anything–until she discovered I think cooking takes too much work.

So why did I think it would be a good idea . . .

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A few friends of mine recently started a food club of sorts—a casual excuse to get together and investigate Latin American restaurants in the Twin Cities. One of them actually came up with a great title for the collective: Friends of Latin American Nourishment or FLAN. My husband and I went to the first “meeting” at the Puerto Rican restaurant Puerta Azul in St. Paul (great title—I think it means Blue Gateway) and though the food itself was a little disappointing, it reminded me, as eating out always does, what a complex beast food can be.

. . .

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