The Mexico City journal said this week that many of it’s police officers are overweight. As with American police frequenting donut shops, the same goes for Mexican police and taco stands. Mexican authorities are not only counting the tickets they issue, but the amount of calories their officers consume. More than 70,000 of their officers are considered overweight.
The Mexican police cafeterias are offering 2,500 calories a shift, before the police administration instituted the new austerity eating plan,they were averaging 4,oo0 calories a shift.
The Health Department released a report this year that Mexico’s obesity level was second in the world, the United States is number one, or in health terms, dead last.
The World Health Organization reports that Mexico’s salt consumption is twice the recommended amount by the same organization. It is because of this large consumption, the rate of heart disease, hypertension, kidney failure and obesity are at elevated rates. See my blog,” The healthiest salt: Himalayan!”
Mexico City’s police department medical team says that officers are showing progress with the new dietary recommendations, however the problem is still serious.
Nora Frias, a top Mexico City police official said, police officials cannot tell police officers not to eat sandwiches and tacos, but they can tell them if they have a sandwich/taco, to balance it out with vegetables.
When I was a state police cadet I worried how I would east right if I was in a patrol car all day and relying on what ever food was available to me in driving distance. I knew by looking at older troopers, not all of them were in good physical condition. I did not want my waistline to grow with my career.I knew I would have to plan my meals ahead of time. I would have to bring a cooler in the patrol car and have a shaker bottle for meal replacement drinks.
I think police officers and sales reps have the hardest task when it comes to eating right on the road. We must be honest with ourselves, there are just not that many healthy options when it comes to drive trough’s and mini marts and eating on the road in general.
Five years ago I was approached by a pharmaceutical sales rep that sold diabetes medication. This person wanted to be partners with me to do healthy cooking demonstrations. This person was very overweight, I knew that this person had contact with diabetics and saw how these people suffer.I then realized that even people that are exposed to the heartaches of people that suffer with diabetes on a daily basis, can not be enough to scare even a health care professional into changing their eating habits.
Eating healthy takes some planning and some motivation, but motivation does not last, you must focus on how crummy you will feel if you are tempted to eat something that you know you should not eat.
Start your on the road eating plan by first, finding a meal replacement drink that you like, you have to try a few before you find one that appeals to your taste. Second, by plenty of Rubbermaid/Tupperware containers to bring you own meals to work, and now with the summer approaching, buy a cooler that is big enough to hold your drinks and food.
This all about time management, we should be cooking our meals on a Sunday night so we have enough healthy food to eat during at least the first three days of the week so you do not have to cook every time you are hungry. Why should you cook?, because the food labels we read and the so called healthy options on restaurant menu’s are often exaggerated to make the menu item appear to be healthier than it really is. The truth is, Night-line did a story of many restaurant chains and their healthy menu items. Investigative reporters purchased these items as a take out. They brought these so called healthy dishes back to a independent food lab, when these dishes were analyzed by there food technologists, they found that most of the dishes they analyzed were much higher in saturated fat and sodium than they advertised to be. This is not to say all labels and menus are stretching the truth, it is just so the buyer is aware that they are not always accurate. The better choice is to cook your food if you can.
The Wall Street journal did a story on food labels last year, it said the FDA will allow food manufacturers to put up to 3% trans fat in their products without it showing as trans fat on the Nutrition Facts label, or showing zero trans fat when it contains at least 3% trans fat.
In my blog Federal Fat, I mention that food technologists have a very tough job ahead of them in there R&D efforts to produce healthier food items. This will take some time, as I mention in my previous blog, “the growing popularity of the sweet potato” , ConAgra’s food techs are trying to design a sweet potato that is straight in appearance so there is no waste when it is put through a cutting machine, however, they also say this will take at least five years if not longer. I had dinner last night with two dear friends of mine, Kristen M. and Larry A., have to give my friends a blog plug, :) , anyway they ordered sweet potato fries and expressed how much they love them. Now here is a nice young couple in their twenties both in very good physical shape, and realize that healthier options(sweet potato fries) taste better than ordinary white russet potato fries.
Eating healthy on the road is about following the old boy scout motto, be prepared. Prepare your meals for work not just for the next working day, but for next three days in batches so again, you are not cooking every day, but reheating. use sheet pans to broil fish or chicken breasts and keep them in Rubbermaid food containers. make the investment to buy a food vacuum sealer to remove air from plastic storage bags then freeze, at least you know what you are eating is healthy first hand because you made it and you know how much fat and sodium is in that dish.
In the near future, if they will allow me, I plan on giving lectures and demonstration to the New York City and Philadelphia police departments on how to make healthier food choices and how to prepare these items.
The Mexico City Police department is making an effort to make the police force lean, but the must tread lightly. Could you imagine being a police officer and putting up with disrespect from the public and all of the other stressful aspects of that job and answering to supervisor and know they are going to tell you what to eat too !, not cool for most officers.
I would not want to be told what eat by my employer after I spend the majority of my day doing what I was told. The problem with a police officers job is that it is constant tension and food is the only pleasure these brave men and women have during the course of the day. With many of the stressful jobs in our country and others, it doesn’t matter what the country or culture is, it is that fact that we are human and we all look for immediate pleasure when we are stressed, and unfortunately food is a quick fix.
As humans we must focus on how good or bad we are going to feel when we are hungry and have the choice to either eat a donut or an apple. If you associate feeling tired an hour after we eat the cupcake or associate having energy and good blood sugar levels if we eat the apple, if we focus on feeling good after we eat good, we will be training our mind to eat healthier. The point is to try to think very briefly before you grab what you know you should not have.
Eating healthy had always had the association of having a lack of flavor, this must change and again it is up to guys like me to keep creating new flavorful recipes.
The police officers must look at eating right as a personal accomplishment. They do not want to wait until they retire and spend all of their retirement going to doctors offices and then decide at that point in their life to start watching what they eat.
Police officers along with everyone else in our society, must make the choice they are going to eat healthy because they want to have a long happy healthy retirement and to enjoy their family life, not because their employer told them to eat right.
Have a great Memorial day and lets not forget why we have memorial day!
God bless our armed forces!!!
