Monday 25 October 2010

Big is Beautiful!!

Everything here in US seems so big!!The country is big.The shopping malls are enormous(compared to European standards).The foods and groceries are available in enormous packages.
1 Gallon is the standard size of milk.In Europe 1litre is the standard size(1 litres = 0.264172052 US gallons).
I buy 15 pound bag of extra large potatoes.I have to cut them into halves and use 1 half in a standard curry for two.
Onions are often the size of medium size cabbages. Vegetable oil spreads, as they call the margarine here are sold in buckets.At least that's how it seems to me.I am used to small packs of them.
However,this system of things suit me great.I am buying a crate of 90 eggs, and big buckets of margarine in lesser price.Yes often that big bucket of Margarine is the same price as a small pack in Vevey.
Yeah,that's cheap and if wisely used it can lessen living costs a lot.
But does America spend so wisely?
I think,there are two negative aspects of these big buckets of ice creams and larger than life size packets of potatoes and chocolates and everything.
1)people eat more than is healthy(leading to obesity)
2)people waste more than they ought to(leading to poverty!!yes here in US)
-According to a 2004 study from the University of Arizona (UA) in Tucson, on average, American households waste 14 percent of their food purchases.
Official surveys indicate that every year more than 350 billion pounds of edible food is available for human consumption in the United States. Of that total, nearly 100 billion pounds - including fresh vegetables, fruits, milk, and grain products - are lost to waste by retailers, restaurants, and consumers.

Isn't this obvious?
Here,where everything is so BIG,wastage must be Big too.

4 comments:

  1. It's so interesting to see your point of view, but sad at the same time, because I see what you see, and it is not what I wish was true for my country. I hope you keep blogging.

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  2. Thanks.I hope to write about the positive side of the things in my next post.

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  3. Haha ...that's the first thing that struck my ma and my inlaws why is everything so big ...sometimes you really need is just a small size ... another thing that we see here are these tons of flyers and newspapers ..... according to my ma ..back in India one person can get himself a frugal meal by just selling these papers for recycling....:) keep on blogging I like them ... I asked Manish to read them too ..

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  4. That's a good idea about those flyers...I obviously found it so in every European country we visited.We found a good use for them.We used to cover the table with them before serving food as we didnt have any table cover.

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