I think I shall have to divide what I want to post regarding this dinner (two topics) as I would like to hear your input on each (which really can't be covered as well as dividing the two topics).

#1: A lot of over-weight people were present. I don't think this is a *Mormon* thing, so much as it is a *sign of the times*. People in our area (probably above average as far as income goes), just plain over-eat, while so many others are struggling to just get enough food to keep them from starving to death.

And true to form, it seemed like the over-weight (by 50lbs., and even lots more) dominated the group. (I even felt svelte in this group, in comparison.)

(I know, I know---the problem is getting food to the needy.)

But even so......

I'd sure appreciate your comments.

I don't know that it's strictly a Mormon thing. For me, it's a middle-aged post menopausal thing. I have maybe 30 extra pounds. I lost it three times (twice by dieting, and once post surgery.) I can't keep it off, and I got tired of maintaining three separate wardrobes. So now I am a size 12 to stay.

Yep, that's me exactly. I can take 20 pounds off when I want to, but can't keep it off. I get to a certain size and I maintain it without work (although I can't if I eat too much of what might be normal in a mormon diet). So I quit being depressed about it, am working on just getting a size 12 wardrobe and accepting it. Although I keep my 8s and 10s for when I want to focus on losing, which I do occasionally. Yeah, I could deny myself (no wine, no carbs, no chocolate, like NONE). But, why? There's a number on the scale I can't let myself go over, but I rarely get close to it by eating normally (some indulgences, but have to watch it).

I do think the diet a lot of us baby boomers were raised on (not just mormons) has contributed to our obesity rates. Remember goopy casseroles made with cream soups, goopy potatoes made with cream soups, cakes cakes cakes (always having to have dessert) etc. Our parents were raised during the depression and wanted their children to have plenty of good (tasting) food. So many of us have just continued to feed ourselves and our own families that way.

Probably we're defining "overweight" as obesity, which might be 50 or more pounds overweight, or "dangerously" overweight. A size 12 is smaller than the National average for women, which, I think is a 14-16.

Back in the 1940's and 1950's, Utah was technically part of the "goiter belt". People lived so far from the ocean, that many of them developed hypothyroidism, from lack of iodine, causing a weight gain. Adding iodine to their diets (iodized salt) helped treat this condition.

But what about now? The Nation is more obese than it's ever been! Back in school in California, in the 1960's, there was one "fat kid" in our school class. Only one! A soda pop was a 6 oz bottle, and we could have two a year--crossing the Nevada desert, and coming back home. No one sees the connection between sugar and obesity. Expensive studies are conducted on the causes of child obesity, teen obesity, middle age obesity, etc, etc. There are new theories about the psychological and emotional triggers. New drugs are developed. Remember Fen-fen? Half the women in our ward went on that and lost tons of weight, then gained it back, until they were fatter than ever before. Anyway, the response to all this diet-craze is people getting fatter, and they're developing eating disorders, which used to be freakishly rare. There was a group of Utah girls in my BYU dorm, who would run around the baseball field, and throw-up there, every night, and they acted like it was normal.

I think this is a Utah Mormon thing. Have you seen the popular Mormon recipes? Sugar, corn syrup, molasses, butter, bacon, lard. Most Mormons I have known are stubborn about their "traditional" recipes. They seem to have an emotional attachment to their candy, cookies, pies, and baked goods--and Jell-o is a standing joke about Mormons. They chow on this junk, and then try to compensate by skipping meals, or over-exercising, or looking for that magic diet pill. In the wards I have belonged to, there is usually group-dieting among the women.

I know Mormon mothers who have a "candy cupboard", and they keep a huge supply of candy in there, to give their kids and grandkids. It keeps the kids coming back for more, and keeps them loving grandma and her stash.

I know Mormon parents who will feed their children junk that they themselves would never eat! What's that about? Save yourself, but throw your children under the bus?

What diet fad is popular right now? The Marie Osmond-endorsed Nutrisystem is advertised as "no gimicks", right, and you buy and eat only their expensive "shakes" and pre-packaged stuff? About 20 years ago, I went on Nutrisystem with half the Relief Society, and three of us had to have gallbladder surgery! That was my one and only experience with a "diet". Before that, and ever since, I eat healthy meals, and stop when I'm not hungry anymore. I don't eat the "traditional" beefy American diet, though, and I avoid sugar. The US-Approved Food Pyramid way of eating would probably kill me.

On our yearly vacation, we would pass through Utah, and my mother would go off on how fat the women were, especially the young ones. She said they looked "like they have given up."

Maybe depression plays a role.

"Have you seen the popular Mormon recipes? Sugar, corn syrup, molasses, butter, bacon, lard. "

Bad things on your list: sugar, corn syrup, molasses.

Good things on your list: butter, bacon, lard.

Nutrisystem is a 1200 a day calorie diet (women's plan) of high carbohydrate, low fat foods.

I tried it for about a week years ago and I was starving. Never again.

>
> Back in the 1940's and 1950's, Utah was
> technically part of the "goiter belt".

Isn't that what women in Brooklyn use to keep their stockings up? :-)

quatermass2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Isn't that what women in Brooklyn use to keep
> their stockings up? :-)

:) :) :)

I have no clue what the current 'obesity problem' in this country really boils down to. But I have often wondered if Marie is paying tithing on all that money she must have coming in from the Nutri-System commercials on TV.

To me, this is a convergence of several different factors.

As a whole, we eat a lot more processed foods than we did even just a couple generations ago. Typically, anything that comes out of a can or a box or in a frozen block has much more sodium, sugar, and fat than the same dish made at home with whole, fresh ingredients. We eat out a lot more than previous generations and OMG, same. It is both more expensive and more time-consuming to eat fresh, whole foods and cook healthy meals every day.

At the same time, as a whole, we are much more sedentary than we were a couple generations ago. In the 60s, we had all sorts of manufacturing and other jobs where people got to move around more during the course of their work day. Now, I'd say that 75% sit at a desk all day. Very few of us have the time, inclination, and resources to work out regularly. And often when we do, the strength-building or cardio work is insufficient to offset the sedentary lifestyles.

It's so much easier to shove microwave popcorn in your face while sitting in front of the TV with your phone in your other greasy little hand.

While the obesity epidemic is certainly not exclusive to mormonism, I think mormonism exacerbates this problem with a couple other added factors.

The one day a week that most people have free, on which they could get out and exercise or just be more active, they are stuck at church for half the day. And the rest of that day, they aren't really allowed to go out and do anything. I would imagine even exercise is discouraged because of the whole day of rest/keep the sabbath holy thing. Couple that with horrible, cheap, processed foods being served at any ward event involving a meal -- and if it doesn't involve a whole meal, then the only light snacks served will be cookies/junk food. I've never been to a mormon event where there was a nice spinach salad, fresh veggies or even a veggie tray to snack from. Always cookies and pop and pies and garbage.

Added complication, specific to mormonism, is encouraging women to have baby after baby after baby. It's really hard to get your body back (and it's never exactly the same after childbirth, ever) if you just have one or two kids, spaced three years apart, but when you've got 4+ kids spaced two years or less apart, A) When you gonna have time to work out? B) how do you ever lose the baby weight if you just turn around and put more right back on?

And you'd think the WoW would offer some actual health tips, but not really. I know the Seventh Day Adventists are also a kooky cult, but at least they've got the healthy eating thing right.

Mormonism keeps people on a very unhealthy gerbil wheel of busywork, poor quality food, lack of time and resources, and proper exercise as well as too many babies.

next time just have a wedding workout. Make those guests sweat !

Posted by: dogzilla ( )
Date: May 15, 2017 11:12AM

"I know the Seventh Day Adventists are also a kooky cult, but at least they've got the healthy eating thing right."

Well--I'm not so sure about that. I live near one of their markets. Have you ever tried their "pretend" meat product? (Gag.) And, they tend to "make-up" ingredients to presentment a real food product--even substituting make-believe 'greens'.

The do have several items for diabetics that can be hard to find, such as cookies.

They also feature a dinning facility, and offer 'take-out' stuff. (I used to get their turkey sandwiches, as it has 'real' turkey.)

I live near Hollywood, and within my cities boundaries are several studios, and so this store attracts the diet conscious people among them. (It's "in" to be seen there.)

Okay, let me rephrase. They've got the idea right. I've never been a fan of faux meat products. I was veg for about 15 years and found that I got plenty of protein if I just left the meat out of any dish. I ate the same food everyone else ate, just not the meat.

I can't even understand the thinking behind fake greens. Why? Why? Why? :-D

But no, I've never encountered an SDA market.

pollythinks Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Posted by: dogzilla ( )
> Date: May 15, 2017 11:12AM

> Well--I'm not so sure about that. I live near one
> of their markets. Have you ever tried their
> "pretend" meat product? (Gag.)

I have been mostly-veg (the exception is some nutritional supplements) for a long time now, and meat analogs (most of which are made out of products which begin with soy beans, or gluten derived from wheat) are an important transitional step for many people who become vegetarians (of one kind or another). Most of the ones I tried are okay, and some of them are actually good as themselves (like tempeh "bacon"), but the longer someone is veg, the more likely it is that their meat analog consumption will decrease to either zero, or nearly so. I know that among meat analogs in general, some are manufactured (evidently) by SDA manufacturers (they have some "meat" products in cans, as I remember), but I never tried any, so I have no idea of their taste or their mouth feel.

> And, they tend to
> "make-up" ingredients to presentment a real food
> product--even substituting make-believe 'greens'.

I have never before heard of, or seen, any make-believe 'greens," and I can't imagine what the purpose would be, or what they might have been made from. [???]

> They also feature a dinning facility, and offer
> 'take-out' stuff. (I used to get their turkey
> sandwiches, as it has 'real' turkey.)

When vegetarians are out on the road, one of the most important "survival" tips they need to learn is: SDA hospitals are your friends, because SDA hospitals have cafeterias, and decent veg meals can always be found there. Definitely not gourmet food (in my experience), but down-home-style and honestly veg cooking that is always appreciated, ESPECIALLY when you're out on the road and far from your actual home.


> I live near Hollywood, and within my cities
> boundaries are several studios, and so this store
> attracts the diet conscious people among them.
> (It's "in" to be seen there.)

Now that The Good Life (which used to be on Lankershim) is no more (RIP), it is mostly the various Whole Foods stores which fill this niche in the Valley---plus, of course, Follow Your Heart in Canoga Park. When I was a young adult, it was the Von's Market across the street from the Motion Picture Country Home, because all around this Woodland Hills-border of Calabasas area, the various different neighborhoods are generously populated with industry people of every possible type (although most of the before-the-camera celebrities are basically unrecognizable, to most non-industry people anyway, when they're not costumed, and not in "appearance" makeup, and they are not intentionally "popping" for an audience and/or cameras).

Beginning paparazzi learn quickly that one of the best ways to get saleable photos is to stake out the "right" stores, and many of the photos then taken (often from a distance, unknown to the subject in the photos) later appear on the covers of the supermarket tabloids.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 05/16/2017 05:21PM by Tevai.

An other vegetarian road trip tip:

Burger King still has a veggie burger, which is really good if you ask them to flame broil it rather than microwave it (I ask them to make it like a Whopper with all the goodies on it. YUM).

And everything on Taco Bell's menu can be ordered with beans only/substitute beans for beef.

dogzilla Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> An other vegetarian road trip tip:
>
> Burger King still has a veggie burger, which is
> really good if you ask them to flame broil it
> rather than microwave it (I ask them to make it
> like a Whopper with all the goodies on it. YUM).

Thanks for this, dogzilla...I will definitely keep this in mind for the future!!

:)

One other thing about the SDA's is that the community they founded, Loma Linda, CA is considered a blue zone, where people have the longest lifespans in the world. The hospital there is one of the top hospitals in the US. You don't see Utah being considered one of those zones, and it's because while Mormons generally don't drink or use tobacco, their diet isn't exactly one of the best.

In addition to the sugar and fats, Mormon recipes often call for things like canned soups, packets of salad dressing mix, and other stuff that's not made from scratch. I've seen Mormon recipes for crockpot pot roast that consist of a packet of gravy mix, a packet of ranch or Italian salad dressing mix, and some beef broth. Mormon desserts are often made with instant pudding or boxes of cake mix instead of baking from scratch.

In a way, this thread reminds me of when I went out for pizza with my mom and the Mormon step family, and when we ordered a large salad meant to be shared with several people, my mom and I were the only ones to eat salad. The Mormons just ate pizza and garlic bread.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/17/2017 06:39PM by adoylelb.

dogzilla: May 16, 2017 09:32AM


newOkay, I can't even understand the thinking behind fake greens. Why? Why? Why? :-D

Answer: Because most people don't like greens, so they devised a cookie with ground-up greens hidden inside. And, green juice, with added pineapple (and so-forth).

This reminds me of a friend of mine in college that was doing grad work. He had a job as a waiter in a Salt Lake eatery in the 1970's as he went to U of U. He said he always knew who was Mormon because the couples would never talk and they asked for at least 3 full bread baskets throughout the meal. They were always overweight. This compared to the other couples that would ask for some sort of alcohol beverage, usually wine. We all have a pleasure part of the brain. Mormons are taught, a lot of us were taught, almost anything providing a feeling pleasure was to be put aside. The only thing left is food.

1. Don't eat second helpings.
2. Keep the portions small.
3. Avoid carbs and sugars.
4. Drink coffee - black if possible. No calories and keeps down water retention even.
5. Result: less depression, less diabetes, less weight, happiness.

...and get off your butt.
Walk, run, whatever...just don't sit there :)

Years ago, while on a tour in Europe, I made friends with a couple who bought most of their clothes from L. L. Bean, in Maine.

L. L. Bean's clothes are usually pretty classy-looking, but expensive. Little by little, I have been augmenting my wardrobe with L.L. Bean clothes. I don't dare put on any extra pounds, because I no longer maintain a "fat" wardrobe that I can relapse into.

I used to keep a "fat" wardrobe and a "skinny" wardrobe. No more. I buy nice-looking clothes with a built-in appetite-governing system. If they start feeling a little snug, it's time to cut back. This has worked for years.

BTW - this is NOT a paid promotion for L. L. Bean. I just like their clothes. . .

eating all those butter mints and peanuts will do that to you. The green sherbet punch also doesn't help.