The real reason for obesity

I've just recovered from a bad bout of stomach flu. I'll spare the details, but suffice it to say that I struggled with his particular bug for ten days. Not a pleasant way to spend my time.

What I've learned is how little food we need in order to survive. For most of the last ten days, I have subsisted wholly on boiled rice. You take cooked rice, add water, heat. Yummy.

Amazingly, I have had enough energy from the boiled rice to live a somewhat normal life. Far below my usual threshhold of activity, but not too bad considering. I've discovered that, if necessary, I could live indefinitely on a diet of rice and water.

Consider the options in the grocery stores and restaurants. Twenty or thirty variations on potato chips. Probably forty or fifty types of soda--when you add all the variations on the old themes. Pizza, fried chicken, tacos. You get the picture.

Several years ago I was teaching an American history class. When we reached the sixties, I decided to throw a party. We did tie-dye, and I told the students to bring food from the sixties, giving them some examples. Jiffy Pop was the first thing that came to mind. Students returned the next day and said they couldn't find the foods I was talking about.

I knew it couldn't be that hard, so I explored the grocery store myself. Only a small percentage of items in the store were available in the sixties. Everything else is new. I like to tell my kids what I had to do without when I was their age. Can you imagine? We didn't even have Toaster Strudels or Fruit Roll-Ups!

That's why America is obese. There are too many choices--most of them unhealthy--and Americans readily partake of them.

You really don't need a lot of food to survive. Just a little boiled rice. And maybe a few pieces of meat to spice it up, with raw vegetables on the side. A full meal.