America is making the world sick

OK, this sounds strange, doesn't it? But to be exact, it's the fact that other countries are imitating America that is making them sick.

Societies which have the healthiest food traditions are trying to "eat like Americans," meaning lots of packaged and prepared foods. It's not just an "emotional thing," of trying to imitate what's perceived as the most powerful country in the world, there's also a simple commercial phenomena.

Advertising is international, and businesses are always looking for more customers, and the poorest are sometimes the most susceptibility. I'll never forget the TV documentary I saw when I was pregnant with my third child thirty years ago. Yes, she's turning 30 this year!

It showed babies dying in Africa, because the mothers had taken the free samples of baby formula for their newborns, instead of giving them the truly free milk G-d had provided. Then instead of buying themselves food and breast-feeding their babies, they were spending on formula and bottles and mixing the formula usually diluted, since they couldn't afford the recommended quantities once the free samples were finished, with infested water, so their babies were getting sick and dying. I remember just crying hysterically. I'm not a crier, except when pregnant--those hormones!

It's all the packaged snakebite and ready-made meals, which cost more than traditional natural food which is causing untold damage to all. On Friday I had to do the shopping, and I had to get some cake for Shabbat. I really didn't have time to bake, but I foolishly read the ingredients on the packages. You guessed it! I baked some cakes once I got home. That's a problem, since I love my own baking and can so easily resist the store-bought, but we were having guests, so I'm not really sorry I did it.