Comment by zkmon
4 months ago
Similar situation in South India too. Eating culture is shaped by foods available. Here in western world, I'm shocked by how little rice they serve at my office lunch and at restaurants (we call it as cat food). I usually eat 4-6 times of that rice per meal at home. Still my people make a special observation that I eat very less food at home.
This is why South Asians have all our metabolic issues (I'm talking about those living in the west). It took me so many years to break myself of this habit. It's not healthy to consume this much white rice. The bowl size at a Japanese restaurant is appropriate for one meal.
Carbohydrates and fats are very cheap in developed countries (and developing countries, like India). Protein is not cheap and is underconsumed in most countries. Meals should be focused around protein. It's basically impossible to not get enough carbs and fats living in the United States or any developed nation. In fact, you're probably getting more than you need relative to the amount of protein you consume.
Of course, if you live a traditional South Indian lifestyle including lots of manual labor, fishing, farming, etc, then you may have higher carb requirements. For most people today, this is overkill.
I've seen this problem in my own family, including untimely deaths, metabolic problems, etc.
I'm sure that if you went back 100 years you'd be less surprised, but of course the rice would've been replaced with oat porridge or potatoes.
The old European one would have been bread: the traditional 2lb/900g ish size loaf would have been consumed in a day. Apparently Turkey still has very high levels of bread consumption.
Germany as well, it is like bread with everything, sometimes feels like back in the middle age, using bread as plates.
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