Posted on 02/15/2005 8:19:45 AM PST by stainlessbanner
DECATUR, Ga. (AP) -- Amid a national obesity epidemic and the South's infamous distinction as the "Stroke Belt," health officials have been trying to get diners to flinch, at least a little, at the region's trademark fried and fatty foods.
But nutritionists have found it's hard to teach an old region new tricks. How can Southerners give up delicious staples fried chicken, fried seafood, fried green tomatoes and cornbread slathered in butter?
Even at the Atlanta headquarters of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the leader of the nation's anti-obesity campaign, the cafeteria serves up such artery-clogging regional favorites as biscuits and gravy.
CDC nutritionist Annie Carr said the agency is working to get its house in order by pushing the cafeteria to serve popular foods in healthy ways. The broader goals of the anti-obesity campaign are to educate people to cook with less fat and sugar and to promote the idea of eating five servings of fruits and vegetables a day.
And for the South, that doesn't mean vegetables and greens flavored with bacon and meat drippings.
"I don't think anything is wrong with the kind of vegetables we eat in the South - it's the way they are prepared," said former Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher, the interim president of the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, who grew up eating traditional Southern staples on a farm in Alabama. "We need more fruits and vegetables in our diet."
When Becky Cleaveland is out with her girlfriends, they all pick at salads except for the petite Atlanta woman. She tackles "The Hamdog."
The dish, a specialty of Mulligan's, a suburban bar, is a hot dog wrapped by a beef patty that's deep fried, covered with chili, cheese and onions and served on a hoagie bun. Oh yeah, it's also topped with a fried egg and two fistfuls of fries.
"The owner says I'm the only girl who can eat a whole one without flinching," Cleaveland said proudly.
Health officials' concerns with healthy eating in the South date back to 1962, when the CDC noted a large concentration of counties with high stroke death rates in the coastal states of North and South Carolina and Georgia. More than three decades later, the high stroke rates in that region seem to have shifted west to counties along the Mississippi River Delta.
Health officials have spent thousands of dollars on grants to promote healthy eating, including sending nutritionists into community centers and churches. The food experts introduce healthier cooking practices, such as alternatives to frying and methods that reduce the fat in gravy and sauces. But those efforts have found resistance from some cooks who say the healthier recipes alter the taste of their dishes.
"Flavor is a big issue - when you modify Southern cooking, then you lose a lot of the flavor," said Laurita Burley, a clinical nutrition instructor at the Morehouse School of Medicine. "The reputation of the Southern cook is at risk when you begin to modify it."
Much of the South's traditional foods date back to the days of slavery. Frying was preferable in the region's hot climate, since it didn't take as long as baking and didn't heat up a house as much. Plus, Burley said, workers didn't have all day to prepare meals; they had to get back into the fields to work. Lard was also plentiful. Today, frying still is popular, especially in poor areas of the South, because it is also inexpensive.
While it's quick, easy and adds flavor, frying loads ordinarily healthy foods with calories and fat.
"One of the common things in the South is that you fry everything," said Dr. Nicholas Lang, chief of staff of the Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System in Little Rock. "It's a major grease-transport mechanism - there's no idea how much calories you get when you get that."
Other research has found that frying, grilling and smoking certain foods can cause chemical reactions within the food that can increase the risk of cancer.
"The best advice is to fry less and to eat their meat medium rather than well-done - and do like their momma said and add vegetables," said Lang, also a professor of surgery at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
Back at Mulligan's in Decatur, owner Chandler Goff is quick to point out that the bar also offers healthy alternatives, such as salads and sandwiches that aren't deep-fried.
But he acknowledged that the "Hamdog" and the "Luther Burger," a bacon-cheeseburger served on a Krispy Kreme doughnut bun, are what draw attention.
As for Cleaveland, she says she doesn't think about cholesterol. "I probably should, but I do not. I'm only 25, maybe later." For now, she's able to maintain her 5-foot-7, 115-pound physique without regular exercise.
Regardless of age, Lang doesn't recommend the Hamdog, even as a one-time snack.
"If you choke that down, you might as well find a heart surgeon because you are going to need one."
Now, I prefer a grills with. A krispy creme doughnut fried with vanilla ice cream served on top. A lost art.
Ketchup on chicken fried steak is a sin...
The key is MODERATION.
You can eat anything you want, just don't overdo it!
These food nazis know nothing about cooking or food. I'd hate to see what would happen to one of them if they came into the kitchen of the restaurant I work at and started their crap.....
We're real good with cleavers, lol!
Don't forget the greens! Turnip, collard and mustards....all with fat-back or ham hocks.
And peas---blackeyed, crowder, field, purple hull, english...
all with fat-back or ham hocks.
And beans--- snap, green, butter....
all with fat-back or ham hocks.
And potatoes---- sweet, 'irish', new....
all with fat-back or ham hocks.
And the breads...biscuits, cornbread, hoe-cakes, cracklin'...
OK, those we serve with butter.
(is it lunch time yet!?!)
There's a little airport in Oklahoma City with a restaurant that serves what they call a "Burger Buster" if I remember right.
It's a slice of thick toast with a burger on that, a mess of fries on top of that, and a boatload of gravy on that. It may have had cheese on it, I don't remember. It was hard enough making out the other stuff under all the gravy.
But I swear it tasted great.
Æ
"I always thought the national food of the South was deep-fried grease."
Not quite. Drop a dollup of corn meal mixture into the deep-fried grease, let it sizzle and the edges curl up, and you got yourself a sho-nuff hoe cake!
Denny Crane: "There are two places to find the truth. First God and then Fox News."
Uh-oh! they've done it now--blaming blacks for fat rednecks! Paging Jesse & Al! Race ho' alert!
I do not fry much because I hate to clean afterwards. I'm a steak person anyway-nothing better than a big, juicy, rare steak off the grill. But when I do fry, the cost factor has nothing to do with it. Taste does. I make gravy out of my meat drippings. Vegetables do not taste good unless they are cooked with salt pork. I love the pot liquor after cooking collards. I guess the CDC will be knocking on my door soon becasue I have fed these horrible things to my kids.
These do-gooders need to get their noses out of our business.
I must be stupid, but I did not realize I could pay less for chicken legs or pork chops if I was going to fry them! I want to go to that store! Idiots, do they realize how stupid that statement is?
BTW, When I read the above passage I thought of Jimmy the Greek who lost his job because he said something similar. [paraphrased] Blacks are good athletes because in the days of slavery they were bred to be strong.
I eat all the fatty food I want - and I was raised in the South on a diet of high fatty content.
I'm gonna turn 40 this year and I weigh 175 lbs. I'm 5' 10" and I have a size 32 waist - one size larger than it was when I joined the Army 17 years ago.
Yeah - seems that's the key isn't it? I STAY ACTIVE and do not eat fatty foods IN EXCESS!!!
Yes - I do have a reason to stay in shape: so I can stay in the Army to protect the rights of fat, lazy, overeating Americans who think they have the right to sue the piano player because the song sounds too sweet!
It ain't the food - it's the big fat ass it keeps getting shoved into that's the problem. The more they eat, the less active they become because they don't have the energy to exercise because they weigh too much because they eat too much and they aren't active enough because they don't have the energy to exercise because they weigh too much.....
Detecting a bit of a cycle here?
Get off your fat ass, America!
where's the grits!
They are probably the same people who wish to ban smoking in bars.
You're right. I'm a Southerner living in yankeeland. Fortunately, my husband, who does most of the cooking, also lived long enough in the South to learn what good cooking is. So I'm the consultant! We can't buy the foods up here we need for good cooking, so we stock up when we head south.
That sounds like what I make my wife, basically fried chicken without the chicken.
Ever been to the Lantern in Cumming...across the highway from Lake Lanier?
Fried chicken soaked in buttermilk and hot sauce before frying.
Hot banana pudding with meringue (that is the way it is SUPPOSED to be!)
Lemon chess cake out of the fridge.
Low country boil with shrimp, home made sausage, new potatoes and sweet corn.
Yeah, except we use Shearer's and hot sauce, too.
I always thought those were a "Black thang", lol!
My grandmother is 102....was the best southern cook ever. My favorite food was what we kids called messy chicken - fried chicken in gravy. And of course there was rice, and grandmother's fresh-from-the-garden green beans, and rolls, and let's not forget the dessert.
But Grandmother exercised by working sun-up to sun-down, was climbing a ladder in her 80s, didn't drink or smoke.
Now Grandmother's mind is gone, but her body still ticks.
All things in moderation.
BBQ & tex-mex is the national cusine of TX!
free dixie,sw
LOL. I suffered through white bread stuffing the first year. (Don't tell her that!) Then I introduced the misses to corn bread dressing. Upside, that's all we have now at holidays, downside, I do the cooking.
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