It seems like I have had a lot of conversations with friends about the dangers of fast food. I hear the usual argument of corporate America feeding the public fattening meals and making money off poor, ignorant people. I am, quite frankly, tired of McDonald’s bashing.  Criticism of the fast food industry has been around a long time but worsened when “Supersize Me” came out in 2004. It was the documentary of a man who ate at McDonald’s three times a day for a month and gained weight. How can you eat 5000 calories a day and not gain weight – if it’s McDonald’s or Dunkin Donuts, or some fancy French New York City restaurant like Le Cirque? I’m amazed to find people quoting that movie like it proves anything other than the well known fact that overeating makes you fat. School children know this.

Here are some interesting facts. McDonalds and most other fast food restaurants publish the calorie and nutritional content of every single item on their menu. When was the last time you went to your favorite upscale restaurant and got the same information? Why is the food at a French restaurant smothered in butter better for you? The number of calories in a dinner at such a restaurant probably far exceeds a Big Mac and fries – no matter how you supersize it. For example, a marinated salmon carpaccio with green apple and dill appetizer once served at Le Cirque had 361 calories and 26 grams of fat. Yes, I said appetizer. That’s before the bread basket, pre-dinner drinks, bottle of wine, entree, and dessert. Most sit down restaurants have more calories than fast food places. Can you gain weight eating at “finer” establishments? Absolutely. The author of “Julie and Julia” (the now famous tome and movie of a woman who cooked her way through Julia Child’s cookbook every day) gained 20 pounds that year! Also, upscale restaurants have fought legislation to publish the calorie content of their menu (this has happened repeatedly in New York City). All of a sudden, the fast food industry is looking more transparent and honest to me.

Fast food restaurants have tried to bend to the focus groups that said they wanted a healthy alternative.  This has resulted in failed products because regardless of what people say, they do not want healthy burgers when they pull up to the window (remember the unpopular McLean Delux?).  Published calorie counts only changed menu choices in 1 out of 6 people. The other 5 didn’t read it or didn’t care. That’s not the fast food industry’s fault. We are an obese nation because we make poor food choices – even when the information is readily available.

Just something to think about the next time you are at your favorite bistro and a friend mentions how bad fast food is for you.

When I first moved to Grand Junction, I was concerned about prejudice.  Our town is small and not ethnically diverse.  Would people want to come see a female, Indian surgeon?

Because Grand Junction does not have a large minority population, friends visiting from “culturally diverse” metropolitan areas assume there is more ignorance and prejudice.   I think it’s just the opposite.  You need to have a big group of a minority population to start disliking them.  In “melting pot” cities, people may live next to each other but may not always mingle.  Sometimes, this is because minority groups prefer to congregate together.   They are trying to maintain their culture in a foreign country.  This can, however, lead to misunderstanding and resentment with other groups.  The roots of people disliking each start not on an individual level but disliking a people as a whole.    Those are the places where people say ” The Jamaicans always….” or ” The Indians never…..”.  When you don’t have a large enough population of any minority group, you don’t have enough interactions to make broad sweeping generalizations about the whole.

My experience in Grand Junction has been that I am judged as an individual and not as a member of a minority group.  I recently spoke to a friend who is Caucasian and married to an African-American.  She reports getting more negative comments about her inter-racial marriage in other metropolitan places than here. I’m not naive.  I know racism exists here;  I just think it’s surprisingly lower than any other place where I have lived.

There is one drawback to our lack of diversity.  I miss Ethiopian food.

When I was young, I remember the  crayon color called “flesh”.  It was controversial because it was considered racist – that naming a light color “flesh” only represented a portion of the population.  It was an ugly color and it didn’t look like any of my Caucasian friends!   I never understood what the fuss was about back then.

This summer, the color “nude” is in.  When I open various catalogs, there are shoes in “nude” and once again, they don’t look “nude” on me!  In fact, there is not a bronze option that would look like my flesh tone.  Thirty years later, my toys are still misnamed!