'How did a country with a heritage like this come to producing something like Velveeta - self-proclaimed “Pastuerized (sic) Prepared Cheese Product” ?'

Helen Angove on the way in which food is marketed in the USA.

My local supermarket here in LA devotes a whole aisle to fizzy drinks, another to breakfast cereals, another to booze, and yet another to crisps and snacks. The nachos alone take up a third of an aisle and ice-cream takes up a full third of the freezer section.

Compare this to the quarter aisle devoted to baking ingredients (two thirds of which is taken up with cake mixes), two tiny sections of vegetarian food (one in the freezer cabinets, and the other niftily hidden among the fresh fruit and vegetables, for some reason) and the two small cabinets of fish.

And go to a health food store and you’ll see the same distribution of goods, albeit in slightly healthier and more organic incarnations.

It means that, when I do my weekly shop, a few moments might be spent making forays into the world of breakfast cereal and booze, and the rest of my time is frustratingly divided hunting around the rest of the store where actual fresh ingredients might be found cunningly secreted in nooks and crannies.

And yet it is not as if my family and I are particularly healthy eaters - simply that we prefer our food to have fewer chemicals in and to be less processed than your average can of cola.

Affairs

A sad state of affairs, when you consider America’s great cultural heritage of cuisine. No, I’m quite serious. The US has taken influences of the great cuisines of the world, whipped them up in its great ethnic mixing bowl, and created fusion cuisines that are startling in their originality.

Take soul food - heritage of the African-American community, big on greens cooked with bacon, beans and rice, jambalaya and sweet potatoes. Or Tex-Mex, that gave us corn bread and the humble chilli with all its variants - Americanised Mexican food with a kick like a mule.

Or California sushi rolls, in which are found avocados where no self-respecting Japanese would think to put them, but taste amazing. Or Southwestern - Mexican and Spanish with Native American influences, featuring tortillas, posole (a stew involving dried sweetcorn and pork) and fry-bread.

Or any of a thousand other dishes that can be pretty foul in their fast-food incarnations, but cooked from scratch with good, fresh ingredients can hold their metaphorical heads up with food from anywhere in the world - burgers, Southern fried chicken, macaroni cheese.

How did a country with a heritage like this come to producing something like Velveeta - self-proclaimed “Pastuerized (sic) Prepared Cheese Product” ?

And then there’s the farmers’ markets - a growing phenomenon in the States. We go to our local farmers’ market on a Saturday morning as much for the outing as to buy food. Mountains of fresh fruit and vegetables of every variety that grow in Southern California.

Colours

Some come in colours you never expected - purple cauliflowers, white string beans, bright orange tomatoes, peppers such a dark purple they‘re almost black, white strawberries. And there’s entertainment, too - the old guy playing reggae who provides shakers for the kids to rattle in time as he plays, and the criminally awful tuba player with his pitch at the corner where you can‘t escape the noise.

With all this amazing food on offer, a visitor from outer space would perhaps not be surprised at America’s growing problem with obesity. But it’s not, of course, the good, healthy, fresh food that causes the problem, but rather the over-processed fat, sugar and salt-laden convenience and snack food.

And the problem is compounded by the fact that junk food tends to be cheap - you can find fries on sale at 50 cents a bag in a poor area, while a stall in the rich neighbourhood next door will be selling apples for a dollar apiece.

Attempts are being made to combat the problem. In one of the few of his policies I have actually been impressed with, our own dear Governor Schwarzenegger has banned vending machines and junk food from all schools in California.

There are still those who try to claim that denying high-school children their right to harden their arteries is a breach of the Constitution, but most seem to agree that it is a good step forward.

There are even voices raised in favour of controlling the advertising of junk food in the same way that the advertising of cigarettes or alcohol is controlled. And in my weaker moments, when I find myself drawn to the Cheetos and the Twinkies in the supermarket, I’m inclined to agree with them.

Helen Angove is a former Anglican priest from the UK who moved to California in July 2003.

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