Americans gets a bad rap for the way they eat, which is, in my opinion, most often well deserved. I am reading a book right now by Michael Pollan called
The Omnivore's Dilemma (I am omnivorous only in my reading; otherwise I'm more of an herbivore) about the difficulty of finding "real food" in fast-food America, and it's chilling. A definite must-read if you live in America - or anywhere with an industrialized food chain, for that matter - and care about what you put in your body. But anyway, we often tend to think of Europeans as being much more healthy, and Italians especially are really obsessive about their
digestion and about what they put in their bodies. Which is why some of the commercials here crack me up. It's so obvious, for example, that in order to market junk food for kids, they've got to totally re-think the advertising, playing up some healthy aspect - minimal as it may be.
Take the Kinder Fetta al Latte. Is it truly a "Milk Slice" or a
Little Debbie snack cake in health-food packaging? I've seen Italian kids eat these things for breakfast and merendina (snack) - in fact, there's an entire aisle of them in the supermarket - but do they truly help little bones grow or is it just complete crap?
The latest ad that makes me laugh is for fish sticks. I grew up in the meat-and-potatoes belt of the U.S., and I can count on one hand the number of times we had fish in the house (and, sadly, it was probably in McFilet form), but many American moms in the 1970s and 1980s served fish sticks for dinner along with a side of frozen fries or tater tots. It was a convenience food, and I don't think anyone was considering the health aspects. Not so here. These fish sticks are battered with "five cereals" so that "future little captains" can grow up big and strong. I was under the impression that cereals clean out the colon - should "little captains" be worrying about that already?
This last one is a personal favorite, and is typically more targeted to the ladies. What is up with these drinkable yogurts? Can drinkable yogurts truly cure all that ails you? Bad skin, weight gain, heart disease, high-blood pressure, constipation - you name it, there's a drinkable yogurt that will cure it in 15 days. As a vegetarian who doesn't really like dairy (or a vegan - never sure how I should define myself), I hate yogurt in any form. This yogurt may be handily packaged for on-the-go drinking, but the commercials typically feature naked women drinking them in the bathtub. I have yet to make the bathtub-nude-yogurt-drinking correlation, but if anyone has truly cured something with a drinkable yogurt, I'd consider changing my position.
Take the Kinder Fetta al Latte. Is it truly a "Milk Slice" or a Little Debbie snack cake in health-food packaging? I've seen Italian kids eat these things for breakfast and merendina (snack) - in fact, there's an entire aisle of them in the supermarket - but do they truly help little bones grow or is it just complete crap?
The latest ad that makes me laugh is for fish sticks. I grew up in the meat-and-potatoes belt of the U.S., and I can count on one hand the number of times we had fish in the house (and, sadly, it was probably in McFilet form), but many American moms in the 1970s and 1980s served fish sticks for dinner along with a side of frozen fries or tater tots. It was a convenience food, and I don't think anyone was considering the health aspects. Not so here. These fish sticks are battered with "five cereals" so that "future little captains" can grow up big and strong. I was under the impression that cereals clean out the colon - should "little captains" be worrying about that already?
This last one is a personal favorite, and is typically more targeted to the ladies. What is up with these drinkable yogurts? Can drinkable yogurts truly cure all that ails you? Bad skin, weight gain, heart disease, high-blood pressure, constipation - you name it, there's a drinkable yogurt that will cure it in 15 days. As a vegetarian who doesn't really like dairy (or a vegan - never sure how I should define myself), I hate yogurt in any form. This yogurt may be handily packaged for on-the-go drinking, but the commercials typically feature naked women drinking them in the bathtub. I have yet to make the bathtub-nude-yogurt-drinking correlation, but if anyone has truly cured something with a drinkable yogurt, I'd consider changing my position.
4 comments:
So true. The fact that they advertise those Kinders as having milk (which makes them healthy!) is such a joke. Then there's those drinkable things...I can't remember which one I looked at, suspecting it was bull, but its ingredients were basically milk and (ta da!) sugar. Um, couldn't you just drink milk then? No, because Italians don't drink milk. Alrighty then! That book sounds interesting :)
Did you find that book here in Milan?
I read reviews about it a few months ago and was interested in reading it and sending a copy to me vegetarian best friend in chicago.
She also is a raw foods chef. You should check her out on www.gliving.tv.
Her name is Vanessa and she's also a green chef for them.
Anyways its a cool site you might like.
After I wrote this, I saw another one of those commercials that says something like "All the chocolate and sugar you need to get you through the morning!" What nutritionists are these people talking to? Eat that stuff and you'll crash by 10 a.m.
Sognatrice, my mom goes nuts here because she always wants milk with her dessert. Once they brought her grappa instead (she doesn't drink alcohol) and another time they told her they'd only bring her hot milk because cold milk could give her a stomachache. Uh, OK. She's in her 50s - I think she can make that decision on her own.
Autumn, I meant to buy this book when I was in London in January but I forgot! So I broke down and bought it on Amazon.co.uk with a couple of other books I wanted. I will check out that site you mentioned. There's a really good raw food place down in the East Village. Have you ever tried it?
"another time they told her they'd only bring her hot milk because cold milk could give her a stomachache."
Oh good grief, I wish the Italians would get over this one! It's not like the milk is unpasteurised. I deal with a lot of family members who look at me almost in shock when they see me pouring cold milk over my kids cereal.
Anyway, I have to make one postive comment about the kids snacks here. I notice that most of them are made with 'latte scremato', so that's a plus for me.
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