Food in the US

Buying groceries in the USA is overwhelming. This is a piece of advice the feds should include on those little cards that they make you fill out at immigration when you first enter the country. I tried to get some Hershey's baking bars here today and failed miserably. I ended up getting chocolate chips instead, which, although unsurprisingly, turned out to be almost dishonestly convenient for my purposes.

I managed to get a bar at Econofoods earlier this week. It certainly wasn't my first time there, but previous experiences haven't watered down the sense of awe I still feel staring at the hundreds of pre-mixes. It's amazing. You can buy anything pre-made, ready to use/bake here. Brownies? Sure. Fudgy, chocolatey, "Perfectly Chocolate", low-fat, fun, kid-friendly, with sprinkles, M&Ms, almonds... There's nothing that Betty Crocker doesn't make. Okay, maybe, I exaggerate. But then Hershey's does. Or some other company.

But really, the disturbing thing is that they have almost zero "raw" stuff. I could only find 2-3 pure baking chocolate products. Just as well, I thought. The bigger stores like Cubfoods would probably have more variety.

Indeed they did. But just the kind I was hoping not to see. They had 5x the variety of pre-mixes—more flavors, brands, sizes, and packaging—but no darn baking chocolate. I asked one of the staff working there if I had missed the "baking bars" somehow and he absently referred me to cocoa powder, which kind of ticked me off. Right, I guess he just didn't understand my accent, although I'm not so sure how many different ways you can vocalize BAY-king BAR. Or Hershey's.

I felt rather disappointed that it was so difficult to buy something I thought was so simple. I just wanted a pound of (semi-)decent baking chocolate damnit. And I wasn't sure who could be blamed. The evil corporations that strip away the consumer's choices and trying to force value-added products down their throats? Or the many obese, nutrition-illiterate Americans who'd happily fill their plates with this horrible junk anyway. Not to mention that in processing, so many nasty chemicals get added in an attempt to make stuff last longer, look prettier (often the right color), feel right, smell interesting, or just because "we've always done it".

While I find the whole foods, slow foods blah just another annoying profit-driven movement, it certainly has a point. People here, myself included, eat trashy stuff. And we enjoy it. It's a warped world. In the past, raw foods were less expensive—baser, even, compared to processed ones. Now they're like premium foods that only the wealthier upper-middle class can afford to purchase regularly. For the same $2.99, I can get a just-add-eggs-and-tons-of-oil, ready-to-bake brownie mix, instead of a bar of chocolate that would be just 1 of the many ingredients. Why would I want the bar?

Because I like cooking my food when I feel like cooking, not having it dumbed-down for me. Sure, at times I appreciate the convenience and I do think it's great to have pre-made sauces made from ingredients I wouldn't possibly be able to get here. But these should be used sparingly and not replace the real foods we've come to know and love. I like exercising a choice over my nutrition and the food I provide to others. And I believe so do many people. I don't see the corporates agreeing anytime soon, or all the crap being taken off the shelves, but in the meanwhile I will eat less crappy snacks so I have more to spend on real food, since I'm not exactly loaded.

But, hey, calorie restriction is healthy too.