The more globalization, the more American food and less health
The current power system of Americans is gradually becoming the power system of the whole world. However, getting rid of hunger, the United States faced a different problem – overeating and the wrong structure of nutrition, leading to the emergence of various ailments.
Throughout human history, different cultures have created different feeding systems that have been caused by local conditions and the availability of this or that food. Naturally, fish prevailed in the diet of coastal peoples, and herders, mostly, fed on meat. However, these differences are more and more smoothed out.
According to experts from the Institute of Food Technologists, this is rather an objective process, caused primarily by a change in the lifestyle of the population of the planet, the processes of globalization and urbanization.
In 1900, an American farmer produced enough food to feed seven US residents. In 1988, one farmer was able to feed already 92 Americans and 22 residents of other countries. Thanks to the success of agriculture, fundamental changes have taken place in the menu of Americans: they had previously eaten mainly bread and vegetables, and since about the 1960s, meat and dairy products became the basis of their diet. In 2001, the average American, according to the US Department of Health \ Department of Health Human Services, ate over 87 kg of meat – 8 kg more than in 1970.
As a result, now Americans have become a nation of meat-eaters, who consume too much fat and excessively sweet foods, with a lot of chemical additives and preservatives. Result: cardiovascular and oncological diseases in recent years have caused more than half of deaths in the United States. In addition, the number of people with diabetes, hypertension and obesity is growing in the country. According to the US Department of Agriculture \ Department of Agriculture, annually the cost of treating disorders due solely to malnutrition is $ 200 billion. Damage to the US cardiovascular disease is estimated at $ 80 billion each year. The damage from obesity is estimated at $ 865 billion, the damage from cancer is $ 104 billion. About a third of deaths from cancer are caused exclusively by nutritional factors.
Despite all the efforts of physicians who promote healthy eating, their success is rather modest – the number of full, and therefore unhealthy Americans, is constantly increasing. According to Parade magazine, 36% of Americans now eat more than a year ago. At the same time, 28% of US residents prefer to eat more environmentally friendly products. 28% of Americans believe that they monitor their diet and strive to have more fruits and vegetables in their diet. The diet of 17% consists mainly of meat and potatoes. 78% of Americans have a bad habit of snacking at night. 23% of them eat ice cream at night, 17% – chips, popcorn or cookies. Half of Americans prefer to celebrate holidays and anniversaries in restaurants and cafes. A study conducted by the University of New York and the Center for Science in the Public Interest showed that even people who constantly monitor their diet, in restaurants constantly overeat.
The first attempts to teach Americans to eat properly were undertaken in the 1960s. Then the World Health Organization \ World Health Organization found that people in Spain and Greece – much poorer than the US countries with worse health systems – live much longer and suffer less than people from other industrialized countries. The reason was rooted, among other things, in the structure of nutrition – the Greeks and Spaniards consumed significantly more vegetables, fish and vegetable oil and less meat and dairy products. Then the structure of nutrition of the inhabitants of the Mediterranean became the basis of “healthy” diets, which began to recommend nutritionists around the world.
However, the struggle for a healthy lifestyle came up against objective obstacles – the lifestyle of mankind has changed. The process of globalization and raising the standard of living has also hit the Mediterranean region. Spaniards and Greeks began to include in their diet more meat previously unavailable to them due to the high price and now face the same problems as the United States. Similar processes occurred in Japan, whose national nutritional system was also recognized as excellent in the dietary sense. In Japan, the population has traditionally been fed rice, vegetables and seafood. In recent decades, the consumption of meat, milk, eggs, bacon, pasta and fruit drinks has increased significantly and, in parallel, the number of cardiovascular and oncological diseases has increased. For example, the number of cancer deaths from 1970 to 1997 almost doubled. Approximately 15% of Japanese are overweight, despite the fact that such cases were rare until the end of the 1950s. Similar processes occur all over the world. Curiously, US-born fast-food chains, such as McDonald’s.
