palatable

The country is facing epidemic obesity and weight-related health problems. Treatment of preventable conditions feed the health care industry. Heath care is one of our fastest growing sectors in cost and profits, outside of oil and defense spending.

The problem cannot entirely be blamed on the public, nor the high-calorie, low-nutrition industry. Portion sizes at restaurants have grown according to market demand. With consumer demand for more product at lower cost, mechanized processes to remove valuable nutrients or mass-produce high-fat foods have been developed. With budget cutting and limited oversight, those that police food manufacturing do so with far less authority and less often.

Our economy is weak and our nutritional educations are worse. On any day of the week, local bistros that serve direct-from-farm produce and local foods are passed up while millions stop in chain restaurants like Applebee’s and McDonald’s because the meals there are so much larger and cheaper.

The fast-food and restaurant industries constantly bombard consumers with delicious imagery and enticing deals. The accessibility of the drive-thru, coupled with our fast-paced society, make these establishments practically irresistible. Parents are overrun with responsibilities and a stop at the closest Burger King and it’s attached play area is often a welcome reprieve.

The market needs to change. People need to be more informed and motivated in their dining choices. If those same millions of people limit their dining out to one night a week in order to better afford the local bistro, the market will shift. Chain restaurants, forced to alter their product, with either bring more nutritional, local food to the table or face corporate decay.

We wait about fifteen minutes in the lobby of the IHOP. At least half of those around me are large, some alarmingly so. A few dozen people make their way in or out of the doors while I glance through a menu. The manager calls names off the list with a microphone hooked to the PA system. He yells names with his booming voice and jokes with the crowd while he herds them toward their table as quickly as possible.

Our names ring through the wall-mounted speakers and we’re hastened to our seats by a dispassionate hostess. Our server comes by, gives his name and disappears again into the sea of people with assurances he’ll be right back.

The menus are packed from edge to edge and cover to cover with appetizing photographs of calorie-rich offerings. Every item comes with an assortment of sides, similarly nutritional. The server returns to get our drink order. I decide on a water.

An insert for a children’s meal, promoting a film currently in theaters, depicts a stack of buttermilk pancakes covered in two different fruit glazes alongside a generous serving of both eggs and ham. On the other side is a drink with two different types of sugar-heavy sodas mixed with chunks of two different flavors of Jello.

I decide on an omelet and watch the other tables that surround us. The server at the table to my left is, as politely as possible, explaining how the mother had not ordered her meal in “all the excitement” of ordering for her two sons. She looks at him with obvious disapproval while slicing her younger son’s ham into smaller pieces.

Across from me, a large family sat at two separate tables. The father is tall and wide and oddly shaped, fitting snugly in an over-sized pair of discount denim jeans. The rest of the family followed his lead in wearing low-cost shirts and pants. One of the sons wears headphones and focuses intently on doing something with his cell phone for the entire meal.

Down the isle, a man of substantial weight is finishing off the third plate in front of him. He spills over onto the chair next to him and it takes him immense effort to stand and make his way to the bathroom.

Our server returns, takes our order and is gone again. We fill the time before our food arrives with entertaining conversation. Often I need to speak up in order for my father, opposite me on the other end of the table, to hear me. The hum of other conversations is formidable. The woman with the two sons finally receives her omelet.

The food arrives, with each person receiving at least part of their correct order. My sister is instructed to “pick the onions out” of her scrambled eggs. It takes two more trips for my father to get his toast, another to get an entree and we are still left without a water.

The pancakes are mediocre, but better than most. The omelet is split almost in two, but the sausage inside is cooked well and the eggs fill their purpose. No part of the dish stands out as delicious, but it’s satisfying. I finish all of it before we fall back into conversation, waiting for the check. Considering how little we had seen of him, we assume the server will take time to get back to us.

We’re wrong. It takes him awhile to drop the bill, but he’s back quickly to settle it. We pack our things and ease toward the door. Most of the section is full with different people than when we arrived. The service was dismal but our table is ready for another group within moments. The food was unimpressive, but generally satisfying.

Still, as we walked through the dozen or so people waiting in the lobby, and more outside, a stale taste manifests itself in the back of my mouth.