O'er the Land of Fat-Free?

Dia Darcey
Dr. Holland
Sociology 112
16 November 2009

Don't take this too seriously, kids; it was a quick opinion essay for a class.


The facts are clear: America is getting wider, and not from sea to shining sea. More Americans are overweight than ever before—a whopping two of three adults and almost one of three children. Overweight people are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol and debilitating stress on joints and bones; the condition is definitely no walk in the park.

The obvious, looming question about obesity in America is why. Can we point the finger of blame at the school system for only providing sugary soft drinks and cheesy fried snacks for lunch? Can we malign the government for neglecting to inform us of health risks before it was too late? Or can we only hang our heads in shame, muttering that it must be a late offshoot of McManifest Destiny (now bigger than ever!) and we, like our great-great-great-grandparents, are just trying to increase America’s magnitude? Such a huge problem could never have stemmed from one origin, and it is ignorant to blame a single factor (like fast food) for these shocking statistics. Also, it is impossible to blame only the individual for their obesity because we are so affected by the society around us—and the occurrence of obesity is higher in African-American and Hispanic populations, which would imply that they have less self control than Caucasians or Asians. Several of the most basic causes of the rapid, recent increase in the occurrence of obesity in America are the breakdown of family structure and a general and increasing ignorance of nutrition and biology, exacerbated by a healthy capitalist economy.

The family structure provides innumerable benefits to individuals and society; many of these benefits relate to weight management. Close families spend time together playing—and it’s awfully hard to get an entire family onto a computer. Outside activities and play have decreased exponentially in the lives of children, perhaps because their parents simply don’t have time to encourage creative and active play. Eating together as a family reduces the calories which would be consumed by each member eating individually, especially if the meal is home-made and includes plenty of vegetables and fruits. Family relations also provide needed education to children about healthy eating habits.

The general ignorance of and apathy toward essential nutrition facts has worsened in recent years which has aided the media and food companies in making a couple bucks while everyone gets a little rounder. Even the calorie is not understood by five out of six roommates at Regency #309, and surely the statistics aren’t much better for the rest of America. The “big, bad” media and food companies cannot be blamed for making food cheaper and more attractive—that’s what the competition of capitalism encourages, usually providing us with excellent results—even if they use high fructose corn syrup and celebrity promos to do it. The problem results when these two circumstances combine and ignorant consumers cook Hamburger Helper for a “healthy” family meal or provide “low-cal” (but high everything else) soda for refreshment.

Whether the obesity problem busting America’s Bible Belt and clogging up the Continental Divide lays with society or the individual or, most likely, some combination of the two, it is ballooning to ridiculous proportions. As the occurrence of obesity has increased, the average life expectancy for an American citizen has turned begun to decrease. Only a return to the close relationships of the family and a revolution in nutritional education could even begin to contain this epidemic which is truly affecting everyone in the home of the broad.

Little Girl Dreaming

In morning musings, I’ve agency:
And when my mind runs wild
I can remind it,
Gently, Chiding,
And lead it as I would a child
To things at hand, back
To book or stove or
even prayer,
My hand is patient, waiting kindly,
but firm, as
My little-girl thoughts hang back;
She is rambunctious—as children should be—
But comes when I ask.

In afternoon and ev’n, too
I am mistress of my mind and
Would I were a harder mistress!
Sometimes the child skips outside
Without a hand to stop her—and I must take a run
With her round the yard, falling in a heap at the end in a tangle of limbs, laughing
Before returning
Brushing off smells of the cold and grass
To order, reason, older things.

But nighttime thoughts are hers
And she spends them outside: joyous liberty.
Why?! The now freed child
Can run, rampant, rollicking,
Without reproach
Or reminder
To focus on the task here, now.
And it is beautiful to watch her run.

I’m thankful she stays—well-train’ed dear—
Within the bounds of my picket fence
I’ve built so carefully
At the edges of even unconscious thought.
But I still wake, not shameful,
Exasperated!
For the child is far from satiated from her joyous night of rambling—
No, she wants to explore anew!
And I, woman, must choose to tug her gently
Back into the ordered house.
Though she is pleading and pretty and persuades
So invitingly.

Sew Cute II

These aprons are pretty much the most adorable thing ever--and REVERSIBLE.
Mom and I made them this summer (because... we can't just have a normal vacation??).



We also made:
This . Took. Forever. There's actually still a lot of hand-stitching I have to finish on it...

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Alyssa and Dia's Totally Random, Entirely Exhausting and In All Ways Awesome Saturday

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Alyssa and Dia's
Totally Random, Entirely Exhausting and In All Ways Awesome
Saturday

The day began with the by-some-dreaded and by-one-(Dia)-adored cleaning checks.
We scraped, mopped, wiped and pine-sol'd from six thirty am right until the fearful check--only to watch the manager open the door, walk to the back of the apartment, turn, open the fridge, and walk right back out the front door as she mumbled, "Looks good, you passed."
"WHAT?!" hollered Alyssa, hands chapped from hours of scrubbing within the unchecked dishwasher, freezer and cupboards.
"THAT'S SO DUMB!" agreed Ashley, who had spent at least thirty minutes sucking fumes in the ill-ventilated shower whilst cleaning.
"At least our apartment's clean!" chirped Dia happily. "I LOVE cleaning checks!"

After everyone finished beating on Dia, Alyssa and the aforementioned scapegoat got in the car and raced to Wal-mart. Unfortunately, aformentioned scapegoat forgot to bring in her cell phone (big surprise), and Alyssa was unable to reach and or find her when she was done shopping. While Alyssa contemplated asking a cashier to broadcast a message (again ...this HAS happened before), "Dia Darcey, please meet your mommy at the front of the store. Dia Darcey, please meet your mommy at the front," Dia was ogling over the prices of watches.
Although she did eventually find one that would work for timing runs (at least, would work better than Dia's previous method of timing runs: glancing at the oven clock before leaving and then trying to subtract minutes when she got back--which method often resulted in such exciting and ridiculous moments as, "Wow! I just ran a mile and a half in FOUR MINUTES! Wait... carry the two, subtract the three... I mean fourteen minutes.").


After Dia and Alyssa were finally reunited (and it feels so good), Dia dropped Alyssa off at home and drove to Hebrew choir, which is an odd enough experience when there are more than three singers. As the attendance was frighteningly low, Dia somehow was asked and subsequently (in a fit of insanity) agreed to sing a solo for the celebration of Yon Kippur the following day (in less than 30 hours) (in front of all the Hebrew students at BYU) (... in Hebrew).

V'al kulom eloha s'lihos
s'lah lonu m'hal lonu kaper lonu
O Lord of forgiveness, forgive us for all our sins.


At this point, Alyssa was back home, in shock herself--she'd received two MORE letters from missionaries, which made FOUR in TWO DAYS. She was thus newly christened,
"The Distraction."

Meanwhile (back on the farm--I mean, back in the car), Dia was having distractions of her own. In the middle of exulting over the low prices of fruit at Buy Low ("Five BUCKS?! For half my body weight in MELON?! So aweso --" CRUNCH), she backed into another car. She parked and got out of the car already apologizing--for no need!
The cars (well, the OTHER car, at least) looked fine, but even crazier, the lady wasn't angry. Not only "not angry," but she was happy!!

"Oh, HI! Hey, it's no big deal, this happens just by accident all the time!! I didn't see you, and you didn't see me, and you know cars just pull out so quick you can't see, and this car's 12 years old now so as long as it passes inspection I don't even mind a few bumps and bruises! Let me tell you about the time I got THIS scratch on it when I backed up into my son's pickup truck..."

She actually offered the stunned collegiate blond a hug at the end of the conversation and left with a joyful benediction of "Go Cougars!"


Dia returned home, still "well"-shocked, and found Alyssa up to the wrists in a deep blue liquid. She was dying shirts for her soccer team--an honest and harmless enough endeavor, when not paired with two such devious, creative and thrifty young ladies!!
There was so much leftover dye...

we probably could've dyed the kitchen floor blue if we'd thought of it in time. As it was, we dyed (or tried to dye): fifteen shirts, a white bathroom rug, Dia's tennis shoes, Alyssa's hands, an extra towel, Jasmyn's failed tie-dye shirt, a couple locks of blond hair and pretty much anything else that would hold still. If we owned a Pomeranian...

After our dyeing adventures, we headed to the BYU football game (properly attired with stained hands and hair).


The heat was unendurable (but we... endured...?) but we doggedly clapped and cheered, rose and shouted our Cougars on until halftime. At exactly 5:45, we rose righteously from our bleacher bench to make our way to the Marriott Center, as the Relief Society Broadcast was showing at 6. Though we left a bit half-heartedly, we knew we were doing the right thing as Relief Society sisters and, as we left the stadium, refused the temptation of an re-entrance-stamp. "No," we cried, "We're going to go watch the Relief Society Broadcast! Do not try to shift us from the iron rod! We will be unshaken! Stalwart! Brave! We shall not falter! We cannot be moved! True to the truth! We will spend our Saturday night in the company of the Relief Society's appointed servants! We will--(cheering from the stadium)---GO COUGARS, C'MON! RUUUUN!"
Alright, so we were a little attached to Mammon that night. But really, who schedules football during the Relief Society Broadcast? Men. That's who.

Sexism stowed and back to the story.

Imagine our dismay, our horror when we finally reached the Marriott Center to find a notice:
"The Relief Society Broadcast will not be shown at the Marriott Center. It will be showing in the -----blah----blah---some-other-buildings---- and on KBYU at 8 pm this evening."

"IT'S GOING TO BE ON TV TONIGHT? WHY AREN'T WE AT THE FOOTBALL GAME?!"

Alyssa and I dashed back to the field of victory only to find that the foregone reentrance stamps were not just for show or school spirit--you actually needed one to get back into the game.

Our righteous intentions smashed into teeny bits, we held our heads high (ish) and screamed ourselves hoarse outside for a while (we had to make sure the players could still hear us!), then realized we were on the brink of thirst-ation (not one of my favorite realizations. "Oh, it's Saturday!" or "I already finished this homework!" or even "The milk's still good ...somehow!" are all WAY better) (why isn't there a word for "death by thirst"?).

We bought waters at Citgo and concluded that Dasani was probably the best thing on Earth (and when we say, "the best thing on Earth," we mean the best) and walked to a friend's house for dinner. He'd graciously offered to cook, but when we reached his dorm, we realized there was a problem.

What do you do if your gluten-free when the cook's in the middle of making spaghetti??
You exchange alternately horrified, at-a-loss and hilarious looks with your roommate every time the cook turns around, that's what you do. Looks that mean something like,
(silently) "SPAGHETTI? What are we going to do?"
(still silently) "I don't know! Doesn't he know?"
(very silently) "I'm sure he forgot! What do I DO?"
(you get the picture) "...This is HILARIOUS!"

THEN you try to find a way to artfully slip it into the conversation, such as, "Dang, I didn't come prepared for spaghetti. Do you think I have time to dash home and grab some of mine?"
I have to say, though, the embarrassment of the cook when he realized and the awkwardness of having to bring it up were totally worth the volume of hilarity Alyssa and I exchanged without an audible word.

After the spaghetti scare was solved and we enjoyed a five-part rendition of "Brown-Eyed Girl" accompanied by ukulele and African drum by roommates of said friend, Alyssa and I realized we needed to run home-- in the dark-- across campus-- without shoes in order to make it in time for the broadcast. Well, the "without shoes" part we just decided on because it would be more fun.

The results:

After the Relief Society Broadcast, we rested our tired toes in the lovely pool--then fell into bed, finally completing our wonderful, ridiculous, all-good very fun day.


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Sew Cute

We've been sewing like madwomen for days~ more results coming up!

Big, Fat, Brown Sugar Disasters

Brown Sugar Muffins:
Sounds good, doesn't it? Tuesday morning my cousin Cami and I woke up already salivating for these delectable morsels of sugar-rushing starch.
Cami took care of most of the not-flour part. Soda, butter, egg (catch that shell), vanilla, salt, milk and grimace at an entire cup of brown sugar. Then she handed me the bowl for my magical gluten-free replacement skills.
Yeah, sure.

I substituted about a half cup of tapioca starch, three fourths of a cup of sorghum flour, some corn starch, a tiny bit of potato flour and of course xanthum gum for the two cups of flour. Then I dumbly handed the bowl back to Cami to stir.

I said NOTHING about "make sure they're thick enough before you put them in," or "the consistency of GF muffins should be the same as gluten muffins." Oh, the pain that we could have avoided!

So Cami fills the muffin tins to the brim with too liquidy-muffin liquid, I turn on the oven, and she pops them in. They look great for a few minutes...



Until...

They bubbled up and over the sides, then (somehow?!) sank in the middle of each muffin. The result was a delicious but DENSE and GOOEY inch of brown-sugar mixture in each muffin tin and a burned crust on the top of the pan. We ate what we could,


then gave up and made eggs.

Oops. Oh well, we were about due for a disaster.



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Betty Crocker Brownie Mix Possibilities

Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Berry Brownie Cream Cheese Deluxe Torte!

Best-Bet-Intructions:

Betty Crocker brownie mix

8 oz cream cheese

some eggs

some oil

some vanilla

some milk

some sugar

some chocolate chips

some raspberries

some nuts

some flexibility, courage and 3 AM giddiness

Make the brownie mix.

Beat an egg and mix it with sugar, milk, vanilla and the cream cheese.

Put those together in a 9 by 13 pan.

Add whatever else your little heart desires / your cousins throw in without your knowledge.

Cook it for about half an hour.

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The BEST things in life!

Chicken Noodle Soup and PB&J --all GF!!




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Chex Love

BETTY CROCKER GLUTEN FREE?!?!

Ahhhhh! SO exciting: Betty Crocker cake/brownies/cookie mixes that are totally, completely GF!

GF girls beware: it is coming to the point when a GF cake made by an admirer is NOT a reason to marry him! It's becoming, dare I say it, EASY!
But still about 5 times more expensive than a normal cake mix, so maybe there IS still some significance within GF baked goods...