the newlywed, the nearly dead and the overfed

That's who visits Hawaii, according to a submarine driver I met. And I started thinking...

The newspapers are full of ads for sure-fire weight loss. If one of them worked don't you think we'd know it? So what's up? We are fatter than we were thirty years ago, yet there are more gyms, more weight loss ads, more sure-fire systems.

Here I look normal. In France I'm fat. In Hawaii I'm skinny. And it's economic. And cultural. There are not a lot of fat trophy wives, or upper east siders. But we all live with the same health consequences, no matter our beliefs.

I shop the edges of the locally owned market, avoiding the processed middle. I shop the farmer's market. I grow beans and peas, tomatoes and peaches, figs and lemons. I pay attention to what goes on my plate, and I still work hard...to avoid the unpronounceable, to fit into my jeans.

I hate Safeway, and when I see their aisles devoted to processed food I am overwhelmed by despair. Safeway will carry gourmet stuff, organic stuff, more choices when a competitor opens up nearby, but the minute they force the competitor out of business, it's back to few choices.

We have an obesity epidemic, and it's all about what you put in your mouth. High fructose corn syrup (check out the NY TImes article), the products (they are not food, they are products) with ingredients we cannot pronounce that masquerade as food. I've heard if we ate food from the middle ages we would die of food poisoning; if they ate our foods, the preservatives would kill them. Just another form of food poisoning, and we eat this stuff every day, and feed it to our families.

We vote with our dollars. If we don't shop at the local stores, but instead go to the big national chains to save a few cents, pretty soon we will have no choice. There will be no smaller local store, no one paying attention to what we want. Go to the Farmer's Market, go to Lunardi's. Vote with your dollars. Take time to eat real food, to touch and feel, to prepare. Real food is less expensive than processed, and there will be fewer preservatives in your body, less packaging in the landfills - and the taste difference! Try it for one week. I believe it will change your life, It may save your life.

It all starts with what you put in your mouth.