Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/201420
THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET Listen to My Mother by MARGARET DICKSON Among the best-known axioms in advertising is this: Sex sells. • Shop the "perimeter" of your grocery store. This way you get fresh Hence, print and broadcast ads featuring scantily clad young women produce, fresh dairy and fresh meats, poultry and fish. Avoid the proceessd pitching everything from cars to home appliances. These ads can be so items generally on middle-of-the-store shelves. These include crackers, ludicrous that viewers wonder to themselves, just as one of my children chips, cookies and many other things which provide little nutrition and once did out loud, "Why that girl has on her bathing suit in the kitchen?" lots of calories. If sex sells, so too does food, and food sells itself especially well. • Portions should be different for women and men and for children and Scenes of happy people cooking and eating together make us want to adults, but generally speaking, meat portions should be about the size of have whatever is being pitched so we will be happy, too. Images of people your palm, whatever size you might be. enjoying a particular food make • Keep an eye on people you us want that food, too. know who are healthy and of I find myself drawn to a normal weight. Watch not only current television ad for a what they are eating but how national restaurant chain much of it. Chances are they featuring a slightly chubby, are doing it right, so consider middle-aged fellow gazing following their examples. lovingly at a tub of fried • Sometimes you can trick chicken which he begins your eye and your stomach nibbling, of course. Ditto for by using smaller plates with images of all the food at the smaller portions. This does State Fair, bizarre concoctions not always work for me, of incongruous ingredients so but it might if I did it more fat laden and salt infused that consistently. the words "calorie bomb" come • Acknowledge to yourself immediately to mind. that restaurant portions are The inescapable conclusion often way too generous. I know is that images are so powerful one smart eater who, when she that we might find ourselves the places her order with the server, surprised new owners of red also asks for a "to go" box. convertibles and eating drippy When it all arrives, she puts as cheeseburgers served on glazed much as half her meal in the donuts. box and takes it home. This If my mother were here, she saves her from overeating at would say that once a year is one meal and provides her one probably okay for such donut for another time. There are many tips for healthy eating. One of the easiest is to always remember to buy fresh burgers or even a fried peanut • Face the fact that buffets, first. butter and jelly sandwich, as wonderful and varied as they but such consumption is a can be, are dangerous places. real problem if indulged in Self-control is the operative regularly, or — heaven forbid — daily. word, and many of us are simply not good at this, especially if we are So what are we to do in the face of images of what passes for yumminess hungry and the food is good. I am in this camp too often. everywhere we turn? • Try not to let yourself get too hungry lest your next meal or next raid There are a myriad of eating tips out there from mothers, nutritionists of the fridge turnsw into a complete rout of everything in sight with no and people who have just learned the hard way. I confess up front that I vestige of self control in sight. do not always follow hints I know to be helpful and prudent, but I take I suspect you have plenty of healthy eating tips that help you on comfort in the fact that I do think of them and increasingly do what I occasion and which you thoroughly ignore on others. I would love for you know I should do. to share them with me by email as I am always in the market for ways to Here, in no particular order, are some eating tips I have found helpful stay healthy. from people I know, from various published sources and some that just In the meantime, with Thanksgiving less than a month away, just seem like common sense. remember that getting and staying healthy is a journey, not an event, and • When you are shopping in the grocery store and pick up a product that if we fall off the wagon one day, we can climb back on the next. with more ingredients that sound like a chemistry lab than ones you I also hear my mother's words, "Margaret, you can eat recognize as coming from plants or animals, you might consider putting anything you want as long as you do so in moderation." that one back on the shelf. MARGARET DICKSON, ConDitto if the word "processed" is on the packaging, especially if it is on it tributing Writer, COMMENTS? more than once. Editor@upandcomingweekly.com. 484-0261 Book Your Banquet & Holiday Parties Early! Family & Business Groups Welcome! Banquet rooms available up to 100 guests 8 OCT. 30 - NOV. 5, 2013 1304 Morganton Rd. Mon-Sat: 6am-10pm Sun: 7am-2:30 pm Serving Fayetteville Over 50 Years! WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM