'Stroke Belt' tightens

Washington Times ^ | Monday, February 14, 2005 | AP

[JohnHuang2]

DECATUR, Ga. (AP) — 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 is 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," Miss Cleaveland said proudly. Click to learn more... 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 is hard to teach an old region new tricks. How can Southerners give up such delicious staples as fried chicken, fried seafood, fried green tomatoes and cornbread slathered in butter?

[doberville]

Yep. And I believe obesity is tied to all the lo fat/no fat
products as well.

[TheRightGuy]

the "Luther Burger," a bacon-cheeseburger served on a Krispy Kreme doughnut"

mmmmm ... lunch!

[justshutupandtakeit]

Boy do I miss cornbread. But it ain't to be had in Yankeedom outside of some soul joints.

[numberonepal]

Boy do I miss cornbread.

Well I'm sure they have eggs, oil, and buttermilk in Yankeedom, but finding cornmeal might be a problem. I know from personal experience you can't find grits there. Go here to order you some meal. Get the white, not the blue (unless you like that). Make sure to use an iron skillet to bake it. My little secret is to add a bit of sugar and have about 1/8 inch of pig fat melted in the skillet before you pour in the batter. Sometimes if I can't eat all the bacon I used to make the pig grease I'll crumble it up and mix it in the batter. Oh yes, that is good! Pouring the batter into that hot skillet on top of the oil makes the bottom nice and crispy so it can hold more butter later on. And if you're feeling real Southern, take that left over corn bread, crumble it in a glass, and pour the rest of your buttermilk in it and eat it with a spoon. Mmmmmm, mmmm.

[Polyxene]

Both of my grandfather's lived into their upper 90's, and everything they ate was cooked in lard. I agree about preservatives. Making something taste like something it isn't (turkey ham, turkey bacon, etc.) cannot be good for you. I would rather eat REAL food (butter, eggs, etc.) than eat "food" with chemicals made to taste like the real thing! I'm with you, Shery! Give me real butter!

[Petronski]

My mother used to buy corn meal in Pennsylvania all the time. It was from Quaker and was sold in a cardboard cylinder just like Quaker oats, except the top of the cylinder was yellow, not orange/red. It was in the flour and oats aisle.

[pepperdog]

I've wondered about high fructose corn syrup, it is in practically everything! Why? What is it about it that is better than cane sugar? Why is it in things that one wouldn't even think need any kind of sweetner, is it also some sort of preservative?

[ORECON]

My Southern uncle would not eat anything that wasn't fried. He put chicken gravy on his salad to make it palatable. He started rolling his own Bull Durham cigarettes when he was five. He could drive a tractor with one hand and roll one with the other. His doctor kept telling him it would kill him if he didn’t change his diet and quit smoking. It caught up with him at 89.

[AppyPappy]

If people knew how much fat and salt were in restaurant food, they would never eat it.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Lol my mama used to eat that cornbread in her buttermilk but the kids thought it was gross. Her cornbread was totally different from my grandma's which sounded like your recipe. Both were good though.

You can get grits up here but I can't vouch for the quality. But there are lots of folks from the South in Chicago.

[jonrick46]

First of all, high fructose corn syrup is 75% sweeter than sugar from beets or cane. This enables food manufacturers to use less of the sweetener at a cost that is considerably less. Only five percent of the total U.S corn crop is used to make HFCS. The development of the HFCS process came at an opportune time for corn growers. Refinements of the partial hydrogenation process had made it possible to get better shortenings and margarines out of soybeans than corn. HFCS took up the slack as demand for corn oil margarine declined. With the effects of government subsidies, corn prices make HFCS even more of a bargain. It is also very easy to transport—it's just piped into tanker trucks. This translates into lower costs and higher profits for food producers. Because it is a liquid, mixing it into the product is easier, requiring less energy for mixing mechanisms.

As for the health effects, you can read lots of information on the internet. I should say that the research is new and it is hotly being debated. The corn producers do not want junk science torpedoing their industry. I say, let's do the research and find a way to make this type of sweetener better--and cheaper.

[jonrick46]

You may be correct about our lack of exercise in a day where we no longer have to hand wash our clothes on wash boards. What the research is looking at is how high sucrose corn syrup affects insulin secretion. It doesn't increase leptin production or suppress production of ghrelin. That suggests that consuming a lot of fructose, like consuming too much fat, could contribute to weight gain. There is a growing body of evidence linking plasma triglycerides to the "clogging" of your arteries, which may increase the risk of a heart attack or stroke. In fact, some researchers now think that plasma triglycerides levels may actually be more important than cholesterol levels in establishing your heart disease risk. Whether it actually does do this is not known because most of the studies have been conducted with animals. What effects on humans will require more studies. However, you and me can make sure that soft drink is burned off with more exercise to get that wash board stomach.