> Everytime I travel to the USA, I'm puzzled by how difficult it is to "eat normally" I'll second that, I've only been once for a few weeks on a work related

> Everytime I travel to the USA, I'm puzzled by how difficult it is to "eat normally" I'll second that, I've only been once for a few weeks on a work related trip, and I never paid attention to what I was eating but by the second week I felt run down, lathargic and really 'not great' - Hard to describe properly but I wasn't myself at all. With work I was connected with a doctor that I met because I just didn't feel 'right'. I wasked asked the usual questions but after talking a bit more about my diet usually (even before mentioning what I was eating in the US) she knew exactly what was going on. My body wasn't used to breaking down the amounts of processed sugars that are more commonly found in everyday foods in the US. I took a more concious approach to what was coming into my body and over a week I was able to feel normal again. I come from Ireland, we have a diverse mix of foods available, you pick a country, I can tell you a street to find their food authentically and I love trying them. I also cook heavy with bad cholesterol, lots of butter thanks to French friends, lots of salt in other dishes from others, lots of cheese, cured meats, smoked cheeses and meats, snacks etc. - My diet was never interestingly good. After my US trip I realised that there is a small poisoning in a sense being taken over the consumption. > My 2 cents: - eat as much vegetables as you want (learn to cook them, with a little bit of olive oil) I'm not stereotyping here, my exposure to the collegues from the local area never cooked. This is fine, but when you replace good food for fast food, you start to go into that chain. They didn't know a good way how to peel an avocado, which I found out on a drunken night with them in my apartment. 10+ and none of them knew how to prep an avocado. But that is not their fault at all.. > It looks like this is hard to do in the USA Spot on. I cannot stress this point enough. You have to go out of your way to eat even moderately health conscious. This is a real shame. We will all take the easier path : 'Ah tonight I'll just get take-away, I'll just grab something on the way home.' I grew up as a kid in Italy until I was 12, probably the only thing that I too away from it as a positive was that preparing, cooking and eating food is really not for sustenance. Sustenance is the result, what matters is the social time, the prep is almost like a meditation, and the collaborative effort is like a social movement. Food is really not just for sustenance. And I implore anyone reading this to try just cook a meal with friends, family or loved ones. It has a nice impact on way more than your sustenance intake. Sugar is good, avocadoes have a lot of them, even the bad ones, but I would much prefer to enjoy my food than inhale it, in the US, it was seen as a time consumer. 'You are what you eat' - This expression didn't come from nowhere. PS: 5 a day and the Pyramid might be wrong, there is no 1 scale for everyone. But there sure as shit isn't a cereal loaded with sugar for anyone. What really annoyed me though, was the cost of it. To eat more natural, is more expensive than processing food. Odd.