Your blog is very interesint

I absolutely agree with Simon. I never met anyone from Europe who visited USA for 6 months or so and not gaining a few kilograms, even the very skiny types – they all gained just fat.

American food that can be bought in stores is highly processed that includes everything from milk, meat, bread, you name it – that is also why it appears “plain” in taste to those who are used to non-processed food.

Colon cleansing. Don’t get queasy, it could save your life.

Funny that you should mention Argentine food. I happened to run across somebody else’s opinions on their cuisine:

“[Bobby Fischer] ate with the oral drive of a barracuda and talked incessantly about how wonderful the food was. ‘Look at that juice! Fresh, not frozen! And where else can you get a glass that big for less than ten cents? Look at that steak! It’s almost two inches thick. And YOU can really taste it! Not like that lousy American meat, all full of chemicals. This is natural meat! I tell you, Argentine food is the finest in the world!’”

And later:

“We ate at a Chinese restaurant. Fischer ordered two main dishes, one made with duck and the other with pork, as I remember, and then swizzled them around with his fork till he had a sort of soupy slush. ‘Terrific food here!’ he mumbled, eyes shining.”

And after escaping from some crazed reporters:

“Wow, am I hungry! Soon as they’re gone, let’s sneak out and get something to eat!”

(from http://bobbyfischer.net/bobby05.html)

Bobby Fischer isn’t what I’d call “fat”. Maybe that’s because he managed to fit an 8-mile hike in there. It’s certainly not because he thought the food was bad!

Not wishing to inject too much science into the matter, I think you may find it has much more to do with relatively bad effects of highly processed food on the bodies sugar (and correspondingly, insulin) levels.

You may like to consider the arguments put forward in ‘Eat Yourself Slim’ by Michel Montignac.

But there’s no getting away from it. The naivety inherent in the American culture is directly responsible for its growing waistline.

It took the French, the Japanese… the rest of the world virtually, many hundreds of years to evolve their cultures (and food is at the very heart of culture).

It is not then surprising to see the folly of adopting eating patterns (and production) from a culture that was (in relative terms) born yesterday.

It used to be the no-fat crazyness here in the US and now it’s being replaced with the no-carb nonsense. Slowly but surely we will discover the eat-less excersize-more secret, but we have to try all these “magic” diets first.

I get the opposite effect to Philip. Every time I go to the US I put on several pounds, so

Why are Americans fat?

(1) They eat too much ( obvious huh? ).
(2) They never walk if they can help it.
(3) Other Americans are fat too so it becomes socially acceptable.
(4) The portion sizes in restaurants are too big.
(5) They believe in stupid diets, like Atkins. Just eat less!!

ps. Philip, you must have missed Chinatown in Buenos Aires; and you can get every other sort of restaurant here too. Maybe a bit thin on the ground for Indian, only 3 I know of.

What has made us fat is not immigration but Dunkin Donuts and SUVs. The reason why we probably lose weight when traveling is because we are more likely to *walk around* instead of careening around mall hopping in our SUVs, as we are likely to do when in the U.S. When I lived near Dallas several years ago, I discovered that some cities no longer even provide side walks. Welcome to Dunkin Donuts+SUV nation.

Hmmmm…
Phillip, I think that you may be trying to identify a single (and possibley irrelevant) cause for weight loss on vacation.

While it is probably true that you ate a different diet while on vacation, I think that there were probably other differences in your behavior while abroad.

Here are a few that I experience when travelling:
Excitement
I am doing different things, breaking out of my normal routines. Rather than sitting in front of a computer working or vegging out in front of a tv I am visting interesting sites, trying out new activities and pretty much exerting myself way beyond the normal. This may actually be raising my metabolism, at the very least it is burning more calories through hours of movement.

Non-standard transportation.
When I am away from home, I do not have my handy dandy car waiting for me in the drive way. In order to see the sites, I must use light rail, visit other people that have cars, stand around waiting for buses, drag around luggage and _even_ WALK!!!

Unusual microbes,
I don’t know about you, but when I am travelling my digestive tract is put under the strain of unusual microbes. Even if this does not result in illness (resulting dehydration and weight loss) it may make my fat collecting systems slightly less efficient than normal.

Stress
Catching planes, trains, etc makes for added stress. This by itself can raise metabolism and eat up lotsa extra calories.

Just some thoughts, check out your own memories and see if they fit into the equation.

Gary

Especially culpable are those darned Scottish immigrants, the McDonald’s.