Think before you eat

The traditional food fad has me worried. Throw it in with all the hubbub about "recession grocery shopping" and it's enough to make me...snack on something.

In recent months, certain prominent chefs and foodies have been praising the return to "traditional" and "local" foods. In the northern hemisphere, this entails eating seasonal veggies, making use of wild game, planning weekly meals more carefully, eating out less, and the resurgence of hearty meals from Grandma's cookbook.

I applaud eating local produce and meat. I also applaud keeping food traditions alive. Where this movement falls apart is in portion control and frequency.

Traditionally, our grandparents and great-grandparents lived in a more physically active world. They walked a lot more, worked in more manually taxing positions, and burned a great deal more calories in a day than I would in a week. In winter, they were often exposed to the cold and lived/worked in colder, draftier buildings. Colder temperatures mean more calories needed to keep the body warm.

Those comforting pot pies, roasts, and bakes provided those people with the calories they needed to get through the day. However many articles I type, I will never burn the equivalent amount of energy.

Therein lies the problem. Our diets do not reflect the change in our lifestyle. We are fat, and getting fatter. The more sedate we become, the worse the problem will become. Next thing you know, we'll be drinking food through straws, zooming around on hover beds in a robot world.

I like roasts. I like pot pie, potato scallop, pork chops fried in mushroom gravy, Yorkshire pies, and meatloaf. Don't even get me started on desserts. The secret is that I don't eat them every day.

Some restaurants will serve you an obscene amount of food, much more than you could possibly eat. The more expensive the restaurant, the more controlled and realistic the portion.

The problem? Cash strapped individuals eating at cheaper joints, consuming more food. These same people are also cracking open the cookbook and making their own food more often.

The second problem is that most recipes provide a minimum of four servings. Left overs are wasteful, right? No one charges you for a refill or a second plate. Good thing you have more sense than that.

Or do we?

Moderation seems to be a foreign concept. We white Westerners are already more obese than anyone else in the world.

Think before you feed.