What Does the Typical Chilean Eat?

If you know me, you know I appreciate food and the social act of eating. Getting together with family, friends or new colleagues around a shared meal is FUN.  If we are going to eat 3-4 times a day, why not enjoy it?

My seafood sampling at a port restaurant in Valparaiso, Chile 

My palette is quite diverse: seafood, fresh vegetables, varieties of rice, sushi, spicy, Indian, Peruvian. When I came to Chile I made a foodie observation right away: no diversity. Grocery stores are stocked with the same 1 brand of cereal/bread/rice/tea for the whole aisle. Look in people's grocery carts: all the same items but different families.

Cooking in Patagonia with fresh vegetables from our garden

Before I share my WHOA! observation about Chilean socio-economic levels + food, let me start with the USofA. As a teacher in low-income neighborhoods, I taught students who received free breakfast and lunch. Being with them for 7+ hours a day gave me insight into their eating habits: Hot Cheetos, pizza, french fries and other high caloric, high sugar content, low nutritional benefit foods. In comparison to my students from middle/high income homes who ate fruit, sandwiches and somewhat more nutritional foods. When I was a teenager, I ate a mix of school lunches (Fenton's massive chocolate chip cookies and decent salad bar) and healthier, homemade lunches. 

In the US, kids from low-income homes are eating what's federally funded and their options aren't healthy or tasty.

**Full disclosure** I am not judging anyone. I just like to observe, notice trends and make sense of the world around me. 

In Chile, the kids from extremely wealthy families ($15,000/year tuition) and kids from low-income families (less than $50/year in school fees) eat the same food: hot dogs with mayonnaise, rice and chicken, tasteless crackers, cheap dry cookies, french fries with mayonnaise, chicken soup, ham and cheese sandwiches, avocado and turkey on white bread. They all drink the same: Coke. Big bottles of Coke and Fanta are everywhere.  It is not easy to find a Chilean teenager or adult who does not eat these foods. Babies - less than 2 years old - drink Fanta. My jaw wants to drop seeing a baby drink corn syrup!

How do I know this? I work in 5 different low-economic neighborhoods in Santiago, I live in one of the wealthiest, privileged parts of the city. In Round 1 to Chile (2005) I worked in the poorest part of the city and lived in a very wealthy neighborhood. 

How is it that two worlds that never collide eat the same foods? How is it possible that from North to South they eat the same thing.  Who wants to eat bland rice with bland chicken? Or white bread - Wonder bread's Latino cousin - with avocado and tasteless cheese? In a society so fixed on not mixing below their socio-economic status, how do they chew the same bread, prepare the same exact salad in the whole country, and drink the same plain Lipton tea?

Good thing I eat up all the fruits and vegetables, mix them up and totally shock people when I eat the skin of tomatoes/potatoes/cucumbers. (yeah, it's the best part!)

An (uninsured) American in Chile

Obamacare. How many times have you heard that this week? Here in Chile I've heard it mentioned a few times on the radio.

Today marks the opening of the new federal health insurance marketplaces. A place to buy your health insurance plan - to carry out the new law that all Americans must have health insurance. Is all health insurance equal? No. Will all Americans have health insurance plans? No. Will people receive a fine? Yes.

Do you know how to prevent needing health care?  Hmm. 

The issue should not be the law. The question I as is How do I stay healthy so I don't need health care? and Is there a connection between the furious and the unhealthy?

Sure, there are people with cancer. They need health care. But the preventative diseases that millions are suffering from: heart disease, stroke, diabetes, pain, respiratory problems from smoking/obesity, etc.

Sit with this one for a bit. Aren't those related to mental health care issues?  There is choice involved in taking care of the 1 body you have and when you make choices that negatively affect your body you better be paying for those choices from your own pocket.

Back to me and my special case. I don't like to break the law (too often) so when the law says I need health care - I wonder, what about me?

I'm a US citizen living and legally working in Santiago, Chile. However, I still work part-time for Teach for America and thus, receive a US salary and have to manage my US taxes. But I also am not a resident of Chile.  Who has the answer?