Food trends in the US

Because of the lack of food culture in this country we witness the ebbing and flowing of fad diets.  We are obsessed with things being healthy and have very shallow roots as a country with very little time to develop a food culture, so we adopt some culture's (that is hot in the political arena right now) staple food or side dish as the newest thing.  (Take coconut water, kimchi, hummus, mate, the latest I have heard is za'atar.)   Some culture that has existed for mellennia, that has harvested, for thousands of years the food that grew naturally on its soil; learned ways to preserve the food to have it last in the harsh seasons.  That paired food not because some study said that a carbohydrate ought to be eaten with a legume but simply because rice and beans taste good together or maybe because those two crops come ripe in the same season.  Not coincidentally that rice and beans (or break it down to a grain (carbohydrate) and a bean (legume)) make a complete protein.  A complete protein is a source of protein that has enough of the 9 amino acids (known as essential amino acids) that our body does not produce.  (I will complete the biology lesson, amino acids are the building blocks of protein which is SUPER important in our biochemical make up, necessary for metabolic function and our mere survival.  There are 20 amino acids, 11 of which our body can make and 9 which we must get from our food source.)  I digress.  I wanted to share this NPS blog post I found and you'll see that Steve Inskeep has just discovered za'atar!  Za'atar is a deliciously amazing spice mix from the Middle East.  You eat it with olive oil and it is out of this world!  My mom it's eat (daily) and falls in love with it every time.  Maybe that's where I get my passion from...

Anyway, I think it's great, don't get me wrong, let's just honor the food as being something hundreds of thousands, arguably, millions of people have been and continue to be proud of as their heritage, their culture.  (like me, and mama B)