Why Quantity And Not Quality?

I just got back from a rural county gathering that celebrates the beginning of fall. Called "the Harvest Fest" it's objective is to allow local farmers and other businesses to showcase what they do. The past few years it has been wonderful gathering to take your grandchildren where they could ride horses, pet llamas, see cows, watch a Border collie round up a herd of sheep, get ice cream and taste wine from the local winery. Well actually it was grand pop tasting the local wine, but you get the picture.

Several local restaurants usually set up tables to serve the typical hot dogs, hamburgers and barbecue. Their wares consist of food that has been made by people whose objective is to produce cheap quantity at the expense of quality and who therefore hope that the hot afternoon sun has caused your taste buds to melt or at least shut down.

This year one of the restaurants in town had a table and they were also serving turkey legs for five dollars each.

My wife and I ate at this restaurant shortly after it opened. I ordered the barbecued ribs. A plate the size of a trashcan lid was delivered to the table and it was pretty much covered with meat, or at least what looked like meat. After several bites the residue in the ashtray looked like it might taste better, and I pushed the plate aside. My wife's fork was already on the table, and she had a look on her face that told me that if I did not get her out of there in five milliseconds my life was forfeit.

It has become a popular place to eat for the chronically overweight in our town who measure portion size in kilotons and whose taste buds have apparently been worn away by quantity eating

I had not noticed that this restaurant was running the food stand serving the turkey legs at the Harvest fest, and I ordered a leg before I had glanced up at the sign. The leg that was presented to me looked like it came off of a turkey whose steroid use should be investigated by congress. It could have served as dinner for a family of four for two days and they could have had turkey salad on the third day for lunch. That is if they could have stomached the taste.

One bite and my taste buds yelled "stop, you're killing us," and I took a couple more only because I felt sorry for the bird that gave his left leg for what was supposed to be my lunch. The meat tasted as if they had mated a real turkey with one of those cardboard ones you see in the stores around thanksgiving, and I discovered that cardboard genes are dominant in turkeys.

Now I am trying to lose weight to help in the back problem I wrote about several weeks ago. And I know I have become hyper conscious of the size of the items on my food plate. But I still suffer from the American tradition that if it is on my plate, then I am supposed to eat it no matter how many pounds it weighs. You know, the starving kid in Africa guilt syndrome, which was fused into our minds by parents raised during the depression. And by depression, I mean the one before this current one.

Why is it that the concept of portion size has risen faster than the price of gasoline over the past decade? Who is it that is guilty of mistaking ounces for pounds in most of the food items served in restaurants? And how come so many people choose quantity over quality when it comes to food?

A sixty four ounce drink size at McDonalds should be limited to only being served in Africa when the elephants can't find a watering hole, and a turkey leg the size of a rabbit, well the way that one tasted, that thing shouldn't be served anywhere.