8 things Southerners do wrong

June 2, 10:07 AMKnoxville Healthy Food ExaminerElizabeth Kelly

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I spy at least three things wrong. Can you? (Mark H. Anbinder)

 The South has a bad reputation nationwide for being fat, and in some ways it's deserved. Statistics have shown us that 10 out of the 15 fattest states are in the South. It's easy to play the blame game and point the finger at everything from lower incomes and lack of school programs to the advent of video games.

I think it's deeper than that. It's part of our roots. No, not the obesity itself, but the eating habits we've been taught by our southern mothers, grandmothers, and great grandmothers. A large number of our food traditions are just downright bad for us, especially now that we don't spend the day working the farm like our ancestors did.

There's no need for throwing in the bacon grease-stained towel, though. What we've been taught can be unlearned. As Maya Angelou said, "You did what you knew how to do, and when you knew better, you did better."

Now we know better, and it's time to do better. With that in mind, here are the eight worst things we do to our bodies in the South.

#1) Use mayonnaise like it's going out of style. It's not uncommon to attend a picnic where every single side dish is made with heaping amounts of full-fat mayo. Deviled eggs, potato salad, cole slaw, macaroni salad: who's ever seen a church pot luck without them? If you have some of each, you might consume a whole cup of mayonnaise at one meal.

#2) Treat macaroni like a vegetable. If you've ever been to a "meat and three" diner and chosen your sides to go with your meat entree, you know that it's common to choose side "veggies" that have little to do with actual vegetables. Common choices are macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes with gravy, potato salad, or pinto beans, without a leafy green or true nutritious vegetable in sight.

#3) Fry everything. When I say everything, I mean everything. We used to be content with green tomatoes, okra, and maybe some yellow squash for excitement. Now we fry everything from dill pickles to our Thanksgiving turkeys. If you don't think it's out of hand, you need to see the deep fried Coca-Cola.

#4) Drink our calories. What says "southern" more than a glass of sweet tea? It's highly possible that tea made with sugar plays a large part in our weight, with over 100 calories a glass (compared to zero for unsweet tea). Some people I know drink a gallon a day, which might as well be a Whopper in a blender.

#5) Cook the life out of our most nutritious foods. I remember it taking my grandmother all day to cook a huge pot of green beans. What started out as a crisp, nutritious garden-grown veggie became a pork-infused mush as pale as dishwater. Unfortunately, it's all too common for "southern-style" to mean "cooked to death," which leeches all the best nutrients out of our garden's bounty.

#6) Worship the salt shaker. Some of our classic meats are bursting with salt to start with: salty bacon, salt pork, and salt-cured ham. Our pioneer ancestors may have used a lot of salt to preserve foods when they had no refrigeration, but there's no excuse for our current dependency on it.

#7) Smother it in gravy. Smother what in gravy, you might ask? Pretty much anything, including the stuff we fried (or maybe especially the stuff we fried). Biscuits, mashed potatoes, chicken-fried steak, chicken-fried chicken, liver, turkey. My father used to eat gravy over his toast when he didn't have time to make biscuits. Now that's southern!

#8) Cook with animal fat. "Southern-style beans" means beans cooked with big chunks of fat, and the same goes with green beans, greens, fried potatoes, and almost anything cooked in the traditional way. You'd think olive oil had never made its way from the Mediterranean.

If you were taught to cook and eat this way, it's not too late to change. Eating healthfully doesn't mean mean giving up all of your favorites all at once, either. Learn to make small changes or substitutions you can live with for a lifetime. Try implementing one change at a time, adding a new one when you get used to the previous one.

We may be southern, but cooking everything the fattening way doesn't have to be our continued legacy. And I don't even care if you tell that to Paula Deen.

-Liz Kelly

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