The wide variety of food options in the United States｜Erika Anderson｜KnowLedge World Network｜Activities

My name is Erika Anderson.
This past May, I moved to Ohio in the United States after getting married.
If you do not mind my clumsy writing, I will be writing honestly about the things I notice in daily life in the United States as a regular habitant.

Today’s post is about dietary habits in the United States.

When it was decided that I would be moving to the U.S., my friends and family often said to me, “If you move to the U.S., aren’t you going to start eating nothing but junk food? You will definitely gain weight!”

To be fair, there are certainly more hamburger joints and other junk food restaurants in the U.S. than in Japan.
However, not all Americans eat nothing but junk, and there are tons of people who are strongly health-conscious or prefer natural foods.

When you go into town, restaurants have menu items for vegetarians, and a growing number even have items for vegans.

What surprised me the most, though, was that there are so many different types of organic and natural foods.
Almost all supermarkets have an organic food section.
Many have one that spans several aisles with a rich selection of products.

There are also some supermarkets like Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe’s with an even bigger selection of organic and natural foods.

This is the section displaying organic fruits and vegetables in Kroger, my neighborhood supermarket.
　

They have this many different types of just fruits and vegetables, and also lots of organic products in all categories, like meat, dairy products, processed foods, and frozen foods.
　

If a product has this ↓ round logo on it,

it shows that it is a certified organic product that has cleared the strict rules of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

This is organic soy milk (vanilla flavor). The logo is on the bottom left. Like you see here, it is in a position that you can see and recognize immediately.

Organic products are slightly more expensive than regular ones, so it may be very difficult to buy all organic, considering cost and convenience.
Yet, if you think of what would happen if you became ill with some kind of disease in the future, you can imagine that the cost for treatment would be even higher. I think it is perhaps better to choose organic products even if you think it is a little expensive now.

Not all organic products are good, and diet is not the only direct route to illness, but it is scary to have chemicals that are bad for your health accumulating in your body.
I think it is important to put only good things in your body as much as possible to try to prevent illness.
When you eat meals cooked with better ingredients, it is satisfying and you feel content.

American supermarkets have a wide selection of not only organic foods, but of everything, and you can find anything there.
I think that choosing and eating products that are healthy and safe by yourself is the most important thing to do to make yourself healthy. Your diet depends on your own choices and does not change that much no matter what country you live in.

Of course, when you go on short trips, it is nice to have junk food that you can eat easily. Although everyone is different, living in the U.S. does not necessarily mean that you eat mostly hamburgers and other junk food.
I sensed that people still have a strong belief that the U.S. is the land of junk food. In this post, I talked about actual dietary habits in the U.S. and how Americans are strongly health-conscious.

Since I am living in the U.S. that truly offers a huge variety of food choices, I want to be a little selective and choose a good balance.

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