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The Super Russian Diet Plan©
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Olga:
13/12/2007 | "American in Moscow" by Robert Bridge
Since the ravenous Russian holidays - with their lardy mayonnaise and ham salads, beef-tongue hors' douvres and cold vodka tosses - are once again decking the halls, we need a surefire way to stay fit and trim, not to mention alive, at this very merry time of year. And what better way than with The Super Russian Diet Plan©?
Yes, dear reader, laugh all you want, but it's true: Russia has a mysterious way of burning away those spare tires, love handles, or as the French lovingly call them, poignees d'amour, that so often appear around our vulnerable waistlines. So toss that stupid exercise bike that doubles as a clothes rack off the balcony, tear up your expensive spa membership, and join the millions of other skinny Russian asses who won't be reaching for a jar of Vaseline next year to fit into their super-stretch, stone-washed, extra baggy blue jeans.
But I can hear you whining: Robert, why must I travel all the way to Russia to lose weight? After all, what does Russia have that America doesn't? But that is it! Eureka! The answer is not what Russia has, but precisely what it lacks, which keeps it a bird-watcher's paradise [this is complete hearsay of course; I am a busy man with little time for horseplay]. Dear readers, now that I have painted myself into this uncomfortable little corner, please allow me to weasel my way out.
Presently in America - the land of the Whopper, Big Mac and Super Wendy's Deluxe - there is a tremendous amount of sweaty handwringing going on about a super surge in obesity rates. The National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that in the United States, obesity has risen at an "epidemic rate" in the last 20 years. The 2006 report concludes that 30.5 percent of Americans are obese, while 13.5 percent are seriously overweight. Yet Americans continue to line up at the corporate trough for their daily allowance of fat, sodium, foreign phosphates, and lord knows what else. And then they wash it all down with a Big Gulp serving of their favorite "liquid candy," courtesy of Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Sprite, Mountain Dew, 7-Up, Fanta - heck, take your choice, it's a democracy. And don't forget some dessert courtesy of the omnipresent vending machines.
For anybody who thinks this is an unfair exaggeration needs to reflect on the corporate cornucopia that is literally destroying the health of America's kids like any pathological cereal killer. This represents one of the greatest dangers of uncontrolled corporate globalization: economic progress offset by medical bills related to unhealthy lifestyles U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher recently warned that obesity in America accounts for 300,000 premature deaths per year.
According to a report by Franchise Times, the world's Top-10 franchise chains (by units) are top-heavy with 5 American fast-food companies and one convenience store:
1. McDonald's tops the list with 30,771 restaurants and still counting (no wonder, when their annual revenue is about $25 billion). To say that the burger market is saturated would seem like a bad bun, but there seems to be no limit to the market's appetite for growth;
2. Subway Sandwiches (24,810);
3. Kentucky Fried Chicken (13,893);
4. Pizza Hut (12,548);
5. Burger King (11,104).
Immediately behind McDonald's are 7-Eleven convenience stores, with 29,465 franchises, which specialize in every greasy and fattening snack food under the corporate sun.
It would be unfair to suggest that the world's growing obesity problems are completely the fault of the fast-food/snack food/soda-pop industry. Due to the wonders of modern technology, our societies have become sedentary to the extreme. But is it really progress of the human species when we can order a hamburger and French fries from the comfort of our automobiles? Is it asking too much from people to have them walk to the restaurant instead of beeping their horns at the Drive-Thru windows? Finally, what does it say about what we have become when food must be gobbled fast in the first place? Did human beings evolve over two millennia just so they can gulp their lunches alone in their cars before returning to their office cubicles?
The proponents of globalization (and not just the liberal "reformers," but scholars and academics with little to gain from corporate pirateering) need to pay a visit to Russia, a vast land that was largely isolated from the more questionable western lifestyles during the Cold War period, and ask why the Russians have managed to avoid the scourge of obesity. While vodka drinking may partially explain the lean look, it goes much deeper than the drinking habits of a relatively small part of the population.
If more people were prepared to swallow their western prides for a minute, they would discover that Russia still has some valuable lessons to teach the world.
By Robert Bridge
moscownews.ru
windchimes:
I swallowed my pride on this particular subject a long time ago. The food, the lifestyle, types of entertainment and office jobs are doing this to us. There are some good points on this.
mendeleyev:
Amen to that. I lose weight on every trip...from walking to eating non-processed foods, etc.
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