"As a black woman, Gordon battled the perception that most of today’s healthy food is “white people food.”
Reading as I did I found the comment offensive, and I think she is making a food article racist…
just my opinion…as a son of holocaust survivors
Her eating of junk food at lunch in Washington DC as a IT person has nothing to do with her being a black woman…that is her choice as much as perhaps my following my tradition of eating no pork at a fast food restaurant!
Moderators…Please remove this topic
That’s absurd and being Jewish has zero to do with this article.
A valid topic. I’m assuming you didn’t read about the impact of certain diseases more prevalent in the Black race, which is what the article is about?
I understand the way the people quoted in the article feel, but rejecting healthy food because (you think) it’s associated with a culture other than your own seems self-defeating. I’m glad there are black food professionals working to expand their customers’ horizons.
She, Gordon, battled her own admitted perception that healthy food is white people food. She had to battle that and get over it in order to achieve the health goals she wanted. The food article is not racist and Gordon doesn’t make the entire food article racist. The article may include people struggling with their racist thoughts but people do have racist thoughts.
I agree with those in the article that state that the accessibility of healthy food is more a class issue than a race issue.
Um, have they not seen all the obese white Americans?
Sure, it would be frustrating if you felt you had to switch to an unfamiliar cuisine and couldn’t have foods you loved. And it’s true that the marketing targets white people. White women in particular, especially with children and/or middle aged. Gotta have disposable income to buy your probiotic yogurt at whole foods and $12 fast-casual salad.
Stock photos of women laughing alone with salad reach absurd levels.
Wonderful!
After reading this article, I think it is pretty unfortunate. Many of these obstacles are self imposed. First, healthy foods is healthy because of their effects. When discussed health, it is better to rely on health and scientific findings, and avoid reference to feelings. Salmon is considered healthy because omega-3 fatty acids, not because a certain group of people are eating salmon. To me, that is kind of like saying… certain group of people believe the Earth is round, so I don’t feel I should believe the same thing they do.
Second, there are more than one way to eat healthy. A healthy diet within Greek cuisine would look different than a healthy diet within a Japanese cuisine. So again, it seems to be a self imposed huddle that there is only this one specific diet and this diet is owned by white people. Both assumptions are false.
Let’s face it most of these promotion photos are unrealistic.
People laugh when they do laundry, vacuum, cleaning toilet…
Who the F laugh (in real life) washing a toilet bowl, I really want to know?
Its unfortunate that the traditional healthier African diet didn’t survive when Africans moved to America, for a number of reasons. And when those traditions were lost, I could see how African Americans may not view ‘healthy foods’ as foods of their own. I eat healthy, but I don’t view a lot of these healthy foods promoted by mainstream food PR effort as my own either. The reason is simply its just not the kind of food I grew up with, healthy or not. It takes, for example, a very unusual set of circumstances for me to want to eat a salad, and that’s because I ate veggies in different form growing up.
Given how easy corporate America make junk food available, cooking/ eating healthy requires an additional level of effort that may seem unnecessary if one’s not used to it.
Actually, I wanted to say that Black American diet was quiet healthy. Everything is about portion. Kale green, turnup green, okra, rice and bean are all health diet associated to Black American diet. In all honesty, the portion got changed. The meat portion shot up and the vegetable portion went down.
Take Chinese food as well. Chinese food used to be quiet health because people used to eat a lot of vegetables and not much meat – probably restricted by circumstance. Now, Chinese are eating meat left and right. Just look at all the hotpot restaurants and grill meat restaurants. Just look at what Chinese supermarkets are selling too: huge section of precut meat for hotpot. Why? Because meats are much cheaper now, and hot pot requires almost no labor. They don’t even make stock. There are premade stock packages.
People drink (alcohol) a lot more. Many lifestyle diseases are growing at high rates in China and India and expected to get worse. Diabetes is projected to shoot up in Asia, especially in China and India due to lifestyle choice. Chinese diabetes rate has more than double in the last twenty years.
