Why do elderly Americans tend to hoard possessions and food?

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In summary, the speakers are discussing the difficulties of finding good and healthy food options while traveling domestically in America. The prevalence of unhealthy and processed foods in restaurants makes it a challenge to find a decent meal, and even ethnic restaurants have altered their dishes to cater to American palates. The speaker expresses frustration with the lack of fresh produce and praises first-generation immigrant diners for offering more diverse and authentic options. The other speaker suggests seeking out supermarkets or asking locals for recommendations, but the first speaker laments the effort it takes to avoid unhealthy food. They conclude with a humorous exchange about dumpster fruit smoothies.
  • #36
jim mcnamara said:
Try living a lifetime with people who think that salt is a food group.

Growing up I never used salt on anything. I'm forced to do all of the cooking or skip meals prepared by my salt-freaked family members. The American diet doesn't live only at McDonalds. Me and my edematous feet search for salt relief a sea of haline cuisine.
Hmmmpf, I am one of those people that like a little food with my salt.

Yes, it will kill me someday, I'm sure, but I've tried life without salt and it's not worth living. The day I have to give up salt and spices, including fresh hot peppers, is the day life has no meaning. :frown:
 
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  • #37
Moonbear said:
I've never heard of that variety before. Are they local to Maine? I'll keep an eye out, because I'd like to find some varieties that store well.
Yes, Black Oxford is a variety that was first identified in Oxford County in Maine (either in the towns of Paris or South Paris, IIR). They have a deep purplish-brown skin and yellow flesh and they are delicious. They are very firm, crisp apples and should be harvested late in the season. They will keep all winter if you have a cool place to store them. My wife and I rented a farm for a couple of years, and there was a Black Oxford tree next to the house. They are not a variety that you would eat before they're fully ripe, like Macs, because they are very hard until they ripen off. Buy a tree for $19.00 and enjoy. I have apple trees on my property, and and going to add a Black Oxford.

http://www.fedcoseeds.com/trees/TreesOrderItem.php?id=77&TreeName=
 
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  • #38
Evo said:
Yes, it will kill me someday, I'm sure, but I've tried life without salt and it's not worth living. The day I have to give up salt and spices, including fresh hot peppers, is the day life has no meaning. :frown:
Ditto! I am nuking a bowl of (slightly) salty Spanish rice left over from last night's supper, and it is seasoned with our fresh-frozen jalapenos and some of our canned habanero sauce (just chopped peppers and garlic packed in water and vinegar). I gave a little jar of that to our neighbor who gave us the fresh garlic that we made the sauce with. His crew had a "Subway night" at work, so he took what was left of the habanero sauce with him, put some on his sandwich and offered the rest around. One guy that brags about eating hot sauces put a couple of teaspoons of the sauce in his sandwich. Allen said that the guy didn't say anything as he started eating, but after a couple of bites, sweat was running from his temples and he headed for the water cooler. People that think Tabasco is real hot just haven't been properly educated. :-p
 
  • #39
I like seasoned or savory food, but I minimize, even exclude, salt in my cooking. Since I don't use salt, it is very apparent when I taste restaurant food where salt is used.

I certainly enjoy spicy (picante) foods like hot curries and hot pepper sauces - but salt is not necessarily part of it.
 
  • #40
In America, you can't get a tasty tomato unless you grow it yourself (or have a neighbor who does). How about where you come from?
 
  • #41
jimmysnyder said:
In America, you can't get a tasty tomato unless you grow it yourself (or have a neighbor who does). How about where you come from?
You're right. Tomatoes in US supermarkets generally suck. I haven't eaten a fresh tomato since the hard frost killed our garden. A new 24-acre greenhouse just started production about 5 miles from here - their plan is to ship vine-ripened tomatoes directly to supermarkets and restaurants all over northern New England. They'll be expensive, but should be several notches better than the "vine tomatoes" that are picked immature and gassed to make them appear ripe, and WAY better than the cardboard-tasting Hypack varieties.
 
  • #42
I too, already miss my tomatos. I did find a little store in Ann Arbor that sells "maters". So named to avoid the tomato growers union regs on tomatos, they are mis-shapen, wolderful, tastie, juicy tomatos, flown up from Fla, right off the vine.
 
  • #43
Moonbear said:
I agree. My grandfather used to have apple trees...red delicious, golden delicious, and macintosh. Freshly picked, they're just wonderful!

That's funny. Looks like Moonbear's kitty is taking a bead on a bluejay in an apple tree... :devil:
 
  • #44
turbo-1 said:
... People that think Tabasco is real hot just haven't been properly educated. :-p

Wrong. They haven't lived in New Mexico. My kids ate green Santo Domingo chiles fried in bacon fat. That's about 12000 Scoville units (SHUs). Tobasco rates 2500-5000.

Bought a tamale from a tamalena, then she gave me hot sauce - said "You can't taste this without some help...". Whoa, I could taste it alright.
 
  • #45
jim mcnamara said:
Wrong. They haven't lived in New Mexico. My kids ate green Santo Domingo chiles fried in bacon fat. That's about 12000 Scoville units (SHUs). Tobasco rates 2500-5000.

Bought a tamale from a tamalena, then she gave me hot sauce - said "You can't taste this without some help...". Whoa, I could taste it alright.
Well, habaneros range from 200,000 to 300,00 Scoville units, and our red Caribbeans are high on that scale. Although we grow them to process into sauces, etc to cook with, we also use those peppers "neat" in certain foods, like sauteed meat and vegetable fillings to use in wraps. I like the heat, and though the hot taste is great when you're used to them, they will make your scalp sweat, and that's not something you can control. If you feel a cold coming on, put some habanero sauce in your soup, sandwich, whatever, and ride it out. Great stuff. We eat our jalapenos split lengthwise with all the placenta and seeds left in, stuffed with cream cheese and topped with Monterey jack, cooked on the grill on a pizza pan. It doesn't matter how many I make (within reason) - there are no left-overs. Tabasco is not much hotter than our home-made tomato salsas, and we use those on eggs, omelets, meat, casseroles, sandwiches, etc.
 
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  • #47
In CA there are shops called Trader Joes, only place I have every bought food in America, they have decent produce, at a *fair* price
 
  • #48
I was raised Catholic... in a large Catholic family. Therefore am still plagued with guilt if I leave food on my plate. so yeah. I eat everything and am proud of it. :smile:

But while I'll eat anything, I definitely have preferences. :biggrin:
 
  • #49
Well - it appears I am mostly unaffected by THESE food issues as I've been so broke this year I rarely get to eat out. Might I propose that more Americans adopt my practice of "rationing" to avoid these food pitfalls. It might slow down the economy and GDP a bit, but right now would not affect me.
 
  • #50
Astronuc said:
I like seasoned or savory food, but I minimize, even exclude, salt in my cooking. Since I don't use salt, it is very apparent when I taste restaurant food where salt is used.

I certainly enjoy spicy (picante) foods like hot curries and hot pepper sauces - but salt is not necessarily part of it.

I make a mexican mole' sauce that I bet you would enjoy. I used dried chinese red peppers to give it some heat.
 
  • #51
turbo-1 said:
Well, habaneros range from 200,000 to 300,00 Scoville units, and our red Caribbeans are high on that scale. Although we grow them to process into sauces, etc to cook with, we also use those peppers "neat" in certain foods, like sauteed meat and vegetable fillings to use in wraps. I like the heat, and though the hot taste is great when you're used to them, they will make your scalp sweat, and that's not something you can control. If you feel a cold coming on, put some habanero sauce in your soup, sandwich, whatever, and ride it out. Great stuff. We eat our jalapenos split lengthwise with all the placenta and seeds left in, stuffed with cream cheese and topped with Monterey jack, cooked on the grill on a pizza pan. It doesn't matter how many I make (within reason) - there are no left-overs. Tabasco is not much hotter than our home-made tomato salsas, and we use those on eggs, omelets, meat, casseroles, sandwiches, etc.

My favorite chili (pepper is a misnomer) is manzano. (12,000 - 30,000) I like to eat them on toast spread with avocado, with red onions and tomato in season. The peppers are from the back yard (still on the vine, got to love the climate here) and the rest, except perhaps the avocado, comes from the local farmers market.
 
  • #52
physics girl phd said:
I was raised Catholic... in a large Catholic family. Therefore am still plagued with guilt if I leave food on my plate.
Is that a Catholic thing?
 
  • #53
I think it is more of a large family thing
I am from a catholic family too and I have no trouble leaving food for "mr manners"
 
  • #54
Yonoz said:
Is that a Catholic thing?
Nope, new to me
 
  • #55
Yonoz said:
Is that a Catholic thing?
If you're from a large family and your parents grew up during the depression, you take modest portions of food, and perhaps have seconds once you have finished that. You don't leave food on your plate - left-overs go to the fridge for later. Wasting food is a cardinal sin to people raised in such situations.
 
  • #56
Yeah, I never understood why my grandfather ran his finger around the inside of the eggshell to get every last drop until we got up to the 1930's in history and my teacher told me...

Back to some earlier posts, raise your hand if you know what a real cucumber tastes like (rather than a mouthful of bitter slimey seeds)... Dude, I miss ripe produce instead of the pretty gassed stuff they sell us in the States.
 
  • #57
Anttech said:
In CA there are shops called Trader Joes, only place I have every bought food in America, they have decent produce, at a *fair* price
I have shopped there for a lot of years. They are both in NY and MI as well.
 
  • #58
mbrmbrg said:
Back to some earlier posts, raise your hand if you know what a real cucumber tastes like (rather than a mouthful of bitter slimey seeds)... Dude, I miss ripe produce instead of the pretty gassed stuff they sell us in the States.
I don't know where you are, but things like cukes and beans and a lot of other produce people grow in their backyards. It is not difficult to get real fresh produce.
 
  • #59
Used to have a backyard... best green beans and wax beans I ever tasted!
 
  • #60
mbrmbrg said:
Used to have a backyard... best green beans and wax beans I ever tasted!

I myself never tasted wax.
 
  • #61
mbrmbrg said:
Yeah, I never understood why my grandfather ran his finger around the inside of the eggshell to get every last drop until we got up to the 1930's in history and my teacher told me...

Back to some earlier posts, raise your hand if you know what a real cucumber tastes like (rather than a mouthful of bitter slimey seeds)... Dude, I miss ripe produce instead of the pretty gassed stuff they sell us in the States.
Hand raised! We always had a garden when I was growing up and I worked it about every day when I was a kid. We grew tart crisp pickling cucumbers (not the big straight 8s) so we could preserve them and eat them all year long. For the last 20 years or so, my wife and I lived in a development so that I could be close to work and I truly missed the garden. Now, we live in a cozy log cabin on 10 acres, and we have a good garden spot that I am amending with manure, peat, compost and organic fertilizer. Our crop this year (despite horrible weather) was very good and our freezers are full. I miss the fresh produce from the garden, but the produce from the freezer (mostly blanched and fast-frozen) is superior to much of the "fresh" stuff in the stores, and we don't have to reach into our wallets every time we want Swiss chard, green beans, etc. I also froze over 20 gallons of blackberries, and we have strawberries, blueberries, etc frozen. It's great to haul some of these out of the freezer, feed them to the juicer and drink them, sometimes with a little seltzer. :biggrin:
 
  • #62
mbrmbrg said:
Yeah, I never understood why my grandfather ran his finger around the inside of the eggshell to get every last drop until we got up to the 1930's in history and my teacher told me...
It's worst with some holocaust survivors. A lot of them are obsessed with food, but some collect all sorts of stuff. After http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Solomon" I was collecting used toys and garments with the rest of the kids in the Kibbutz for Ethiopian immigrants. In one of the houses we entered there were rooms filled with all sorts of containers. The old guy who lived there never threw anything out, there were stacks and stacks of food containers - mostly useless disposable dairy product packs. We took as much as we could carry and threw it in the rubbish when we were out of sight.

mbrmbrg said:
Back to some earlier posts, raise your hand if you know what a real cucumber tastes like (rather than a mouthful of bitter slimey seeds)... Dude, I miss ripe produce instead of the pretty gassed stuff they sell us in the States.
My girlfriend works in an http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthroposophy" . I've attended two lunches there, and must confess I loved everything I ate.
 
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  • #63
Yonoz said:
My girlfriend works in an http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthroposophy" . I've attended two lunches there, and must confess I loved everything I ate.

Ha! And people say Americans are spoiled?? Yonoz, I was reminiscing about the cheap, typical cucumbers that are everywhere you turn in Israel!
 
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  • #64
mbrmbrg said:
Ha! And people say Americans are spoiled?? Yonoz, I was reminiscing about the cheap, typical cucumbers that are everywhere you turn in Israel!
Yes, those are usually known as Lebanese cucumbers. The more you water them, the larger they grow. The smaller ones are tastier (the skin is gives most of the flavour, I believe), and whenever I'm overseas I notice the cucumbers, as well as other fruit and vegetables, are much bigger - perhaps it's due to the farmers wanting to get more vegetable mass per area, or ill-informed consumer preferences.
I suppose it could be the relative scarcity of water here that is responsible for better tasting vegetables and fruit. Much of the agriculture here, especially in the south, uses ground water with medium salt content which is unfit for drinking but makes for great tasting tomatoes, watermelons and cantelopes. :!)
 
  • #65
Rach3 said:
My point is not that I'm incapable of finding edible food in this city (I'm alive, aren't I?); it's that this anti-cuisine of grease permeates the culture so thoroughly, that it takes significant effort to avoid it. I mean come on, since when do fruit drinks contain 58g of high-fructose corn syrup? (Please don't answer that.)

Sometimes you'll find a travel agent in the supermarket. (hint)
 
  • #66
mbrmbrg said:
Used to have a backyard... best green beans and wax beans I ever tasted!

Rach3 said:
I myself never tasted wax.

I've never been fond of wax fruits or vegetables, my mother always kept a bowl of wax fruit on the coffee table. :frown:
 
  • #67
turbo-1 said:
I also froze over 20 gallons of blackberries, and we have strawberries, blueberries, etc frozen.

My dad does this and I have no idea why. Berries turn into mush when you thaw them. They still taste the same but they have a texture like that of baby food.
 
  • #68
ShawnD said:
My dad does this and I have no idea why. Berries turn into mush when you thaw them. They still taste the same but they have a texture like that of baby food.
They are wonderful in pancakes and muffins (they mush when you cook them, too) and since we pick wild berries, they are very flavorful and they make great fruit juice. My wife and I have a commercial-grade juicer, and juice the berries regularly. In fact instead of a sandwich, chile, etc for lunch today, I had a big glass of blackberry/blueberry/strawberry juice. Another good reason (and my parents grew up in the depression, so this was a way of life) is that wild berries are free - you just have to invest the time to pick them and freeze them. I have done this since I was a little kid, and we always had berries in our freezer. Check the price of a pint of blackberries in the supermarket, then multiply that by 8 to get the price of a gallon. That's the amount that I can pick on my property in about 3 hours (every other day or so). They have a lot richer flavor than cultivated berries, with no chemicals and no fertilizers, and they are frozen when they are absolutely ripe and fresh, so the flavors and nutrients are preserved.
 
  • #69
Evo said:
I've never been fond of wax fruits or vegetables, my mother always kept a bowl of wax fruit on the coffee table. :frown:
:smile: My grandmother did the same. I always wondered why. :rolleyes:
 
  • #70
America is the greatest country ever! Most people hate America because they have it tough or they are jealous.
 

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