Tracie McMillan is an award winning journalist who decided to go undercover for a story on the American food system. The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee's, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table is her book detailing her experiences working in the fields of California, stocking produce in a Detroit Walmart, and running food in a New York Applebee's. McMillan challenged herself with living on just the wages she received from each job. She survived each experience through the kindness and generosity of the people who hold those very jobs everyday.
I'm only on chapter two but so far its an interesting and insightful read. She writes, "Seeing good food as luxury lifestyle product has been so deeply embedded in our thinking about our meals that barely notice it." I hadn't thought about it before but its so true. She goes on to talk about growing up in a house where apart from Sunday dinners, weekly meals were composed of processed foods like canned soups and hamburger helper. Similar to my upbringing with a single mom who worked long hours and still wanted her daughters to participate in extracurricular activities, when we weren't eating fast food, we were eating anything we could find in a package; Pop Tarts, frozen waffles, and Toaster Strudels for breakfast, Lunchables, canned tuna, and packaged meats for lunch, and Banquet meals for dinner when we got home too late for a cooked meal.
On weekends, we had big breakfasts with eggs, sausage, biscuits, Belgian waffles, grit, home fries or fruit and Sunday dinners were chuck roast with potatoes and carrots, roasted chicken with mashed potatoes, gumbo with rice, or hearty stew. With pizza, spaghetti, and casseroles we'd eat salads made of iceberg lettuce. We had vegetables with every meal but they were frozen or from a can; we ate fruit cups with heavy syrup and thought nothing of it. It was a special treat to go to the farmers' market for fresh fruits, vegetables, and handmade snacks. We didn't eat this way because we didn't know any better, we ate this way because it was readily available to us. In our minds the freshest produce was for people of leisure; people who had time to browse the grocery store three or four times a week. People with that kind of time were usually well off. Even now when I make non-processed meals and post pictures of them on Facebook or Instagram, I still get a few "that's fancy" comments. I guess in order to change our diets, we have to first change our minds.
On weekends, we had big breakfasts with eggs, sausage, biscuits, Belgian waffles, grit, home fries or fruit and Sunday dinners were chuck roast with potatoes and carrots, roasted chicken with mashed potatoes, gumbo with rice, or hearty stew. With pizza, spaghetti, and casseroles we'd eat salads made of iceberg lettuce. We had vegetables with every meal but they were frozen or from a can; we ate fruit cups with heavy syrup and thought nothing of it. It was a special treat to go to the farmers' market for fresh fruits, vegetables, and handmade snacks. We didn't eat this way because we didn't know any better, we ate this way because it was readily available to us. In our minds the freshest produce was for people of leisure; people who had time to browse the grocery store three or four times a week. People with that kind of time were usually well off. Even now when I make non-processed meals and post pictures of them on Facebook or Instagram, I still get a few "that's fancy" comments. I guess in order to change our diets, we have to first change our minds.
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