Mrs. C and myself have just been through the most excellent movie that is Supersize Me, which is a documentary about how fast food and MacDonalds in particular can make obesity levels in the good ol' US of A slightly problematic. In all my best efforts, I try not to go to the Golden Arches in Slovakia, but still end up going maybe once every one or two weeks.
Shameful, I know.
Canada is a different story. When on fundraising or family-oriented journeys, there are a lot of Wendy's out there. We have found after coming back here that we have gained a fair amount of weight, even if we were only a month in the country. Mrs. C would interject at this point and say that we don't live a normal lifestyle during those visits, especially since we're in 'social overdrive' mode where this would mean a coffee with a pastor, a free refill of said coffee, a breakfast, and maybe a trip to Boston Pizza for lunch to meet with a youth group and then driving back home, stopping at Tim Horton's along the way to meet another supporter. Having a fast food meal every day like the guy does in the movie becomes a reality, because for that month we live on a condensed time scale where we need to see lots of people quickly over long distances.
When we came back in November 2009 from Canada, lots of things struck me all at once. First, our time was so much less condensed, so much less hectic. I could walk to Tesco, where they would sell products that are not ready made. Even now, Mrs. C complains about recipe websites when the 'recipe' consists of 'get this mix, add water, add a cut apple'. That's right, an apple that's already been cut for you. We can't get these things in Slovakia. We have real food, real vegetables, real things we have to mix and cook together ourselves. There are random Indian sauces and whatnot that are made from a packet, when you can find them, and the hilariously expensive Marks and Spencers do great things in that regard with their ready-made jars, but even then, they will tell you that marinating it for twelve hours is the better thing to do, making it a type of fast food that only France would approve.
I've lost a lot of weight from going from starchy, carbohydrate-saturated foods to things that consist of more nutrition than the container it comes in. It's better for you in the long run, its better for your health, better for your mental stability (which you really, really need if you expect to survive as an expat in your first year). It's just another reason why I'm glad I live here.
