Brazilians Love Affair with Sugar

It just occurred to me the other day that in Brazil, I've yet to find a nutritional label that includes sugar. Being the largest producer of sugar in the world, you'd think, Brazil would be proud of this and say it bold letters on all food packages: "54% sugar!", "This granola is almost all made of real Brazilian sugar!", but no, nothing, zip, nada is mentioned. The only way to know if the product contains sugar is to look at the list of ingredients, then guesstimate using your tongue the quantity of sugar and it's sugar cousins: aspartame, sucralose, saccharin, and acesulfame potassium that might have added.
 
The bag of granola I sometimes buy first attempts to seduce me; Granola Integral!, Traditional! 10 vitamins and minerals and calcium! Rich in fiber and protein, No transfats, 13 ingredients! New packaging! Eat well, live well! but I know better. It's granola, not kale. On the list of the 13 ingredients among what you would expect like oats and coconut, I could find three of sugar's less famous evil cousins; third in line was melado de cana (cane syrup), fifth in line, brown sugar, and in 6th, extracto de malte (malt extract which is sugar taken from spouted barley).

It's almost impossible to find products without sugar here, even simple things like yogurt. Of the 200 different kinds of yogurt available at the market, one brand, one, maybe two, don't have added sugar. And don't get me started on bread! Not to mention the creepy "Lite" aisle at the supermarket with rows and rows of "healthy diet products" that boast "Sem acucar!" (without sugar), only to find on the label, all of sugar's evil cousins. Brazilian love these cousins just as much as good ol' sugga and you can find them at every table in any restaurant in packet or liquid form. In fact, unless requested, any juice you order will have a cousin added automatically.

Once I was having breakfast at a bed and breakfast with my mom. There was a little girl of about 5 years old sitting behind us with her parents. Her mom had just brought over a glass of orange juice from the breakfast buffet. The girl proceeded to grab packets of sugar from the table and adding it to her cup. Her mother didn't even blink. My mother on the other hand, almost fell out of her chair. This is not uncommon to see, and it's shows up in the statistics. Brazilians consume three times as much sugar as the world average, that's 150 grams of sugar per day, equal to 48 teaspoons! (Nutritionists don't all agree about what is the recommend amount of added sugar should be but most hover somewhere between 9 and 12 teaspoons a day!)

One afternoon, I came home to my frantic cleaning lady who wanted to have her afternoon coffee, but couldn't find any sugar. She was telling me that she had looked in all my cupboards and couldn't find any. She had made a list of stuff to buy at the supermarket and had added ACUCAR! in big letters. I reassured her and said, what are you talking about? There's a bag of brown sugar in the cupboard, and I pulled it out for her. Brown sugar? She asked confused. I didn't know sugar could be brown. I couldn't believe it. Is this a simple matter of people just not knowing? It's baffling. Even if you know a lot about sugar, what can you do without choices at the market, and no information on the labels?

There seems to be a shift, though toward better eating habits. There are two really great shows on tv that attempt at least to offer alternatives for a better health, "Alternativa Saude" (Alternative Health) and "Socorro! Meu filho come mal!".(Help! My kid eats badly.) The later one is hilarious, there's nothing like watching a reality t.v. show about a nutritionist who visits people's homes and tries to teach little kids who only eat frozen potato smiley faces and coca cola, to enjoy a plate of broccoli! I'm sure that there is a multitude of other educational programs out there that are attempting to make changes, but I think it will take a long time for Brazilians to give up cakes, condensed milk, coca-cola, chocolate milk, cookies and white buns for healthier alternatives.

I wonder what Brazil would be like today if they were the largest producer of lettuce......

A Cosan sugar mill, Brazil's largest sugar company. (Wikipedia)

Three Lessons from my Sickbed

My pharynx hosted a microscopic invader under a layer of oozy phlegm this week while the rest of me made sure I could do no more than moan about it, literally. What's a pharynx, anyways?  The offspring of a pharaoh and a sphinx ? Well, no. Turns out it's a little spot behind the mouth and the nose and is made up of his three other Egyptian sounding bits: nasopharynx, oropharynx, and laryngopharynx.

Anyways, medical terminology aside, who knew that an infection of this little spot could knock me out like drinking 7 Neocitran martinis? And still after 6 days in bed and a handful of antibiotics, I still have as much interest for food as I might for the reproductive cycle of a household moth and as much luster as crusty leftover oatmeal in a pot.  So what does sickness remind me of when lying in bed and growing corns on my back?

One, I'm still a kid. I may have an adult body, but really I'm still 4 years old. I want my mommy. I want homemade soups and someone to rub my head until I fall asleep.

Two, I am weak. Weak like a kid with a box of M&Ms. No matter how many times I jump on a stationary bike sipping on a green drink to stay fit, if the handle bars are harboring a teeny-weeny, microscopic virus- Bam! I'm out like a light.

Three, my insides are disgusting. Especially when they try to escape to the outside. But on the other hand they serve as proof that I really am sick and I need to be in my quarantined bed with my books and my Kleenex which for any mom is almost like a holiday.

Sipping Pineapple Juice with the Rich and Famous at the ORG.

So there was a rumor flying around that a small, all organic restaurant existed not far from my kid's school and after going there with a friend one lunch hour, I fell in love with it. It's a hole in the wall kind of place with chairs made of recycled wood, posters of encyclopedic illustrations of foods, and surfboard hung on the walls. The food is super deelish, and everything comes with a fresh salad topped with edible flowers. Not to mention the ultra-refreshing pineapple-lemon grass juice! Ohhh, my kind of place!

Yesterday, after dropping off my bike for a major tune-up, (you would not believe what riding on the beach can do to a bike, the salt completely ravages it- it's almost as if someone had thrown it overboard a ship off the coast of South Africa and it had washed up on the sand in front of my house), I decided to go back to ORG, my new favorite resto, I know, I know, not the best name, I keep thinking it's short for organ, but no, it's short for organic.

The boy and I scooted upstairs and sat at one of the only two tables available shared with a long bench with pillows overlooking the kitchen and the cooks going over a new delivery of greens. The waitress came over, recognized me and had a little panic attack as she asked me in Portuguese, do you want to order with me or should I get someone who speaks English to come over? The guy sitting next to us on the bench generously starts to offer his translation services in broken English. It's okay, I tell her, I can manage. We order delights-of-the-day and settle in with stickers and little cars to kill time until the food arrives.

Remembering a blog post I read about an expat woman who lives in Italy and how she's surviving, I decide to chat up this guy and practice my Portuguese. Since the boy is sticking stickers on my neck, I pretty sure he won't think I'm picking him up.

-Voce trabalha perto daqui? (Do you work around here?)
-No, I was just at my gym which is close to here. He says to me in English.
-Where are you from? He asks.
-From Vancouver, Canada. I respond.
-How old is your boy? He asks.
-He's three going on four, and you, do you have any children?
-Yes, two daughters, one is 25 and the other is 6. He leans over with pride in his eyes and shows me a picture of a super angelic, blond ringlet-ed little girl on his phone.
-She's gorgeous! Are you doing anything interesting this long weekend? I ask.
-Yes, I'm going to Curitiba.
-To relax with your family?
-No, I'm in a band. I play the harmonica and I sing.
-Cool. I say, imagining him in a second-rate hotel bar with his buddies playing the blues and rock covers.

The food arrives and I'm blowing on my son's eggs when it occurs to me that maybe this older guy with spiky hair might be famous.

-Are you famous? I ask point-blank.
-Kind-of, he says with a half-smile. My band's name is the Blitz and I'm also an actor in a serie that's been around for 14 years called "A Grande Familia", but we're on vacation now.
-Oh, I only ask because everyone tells me that many famous people live in this neighborhood but you know, I'm Canadian, so I have no idea. So, it must be like working with family when you've been on this serie for so long, right?
-Yup, and we fight like family too. He says with a smile as he hands over his credit card to the waitress to pay for his bill.
-Well, have a nice gig in Curitiba! I wave goodbye as he goes down the stairs.
-Nice to meet you! He waves back.

When I got back home on my newly greased bike, I looked him up. My lunch "date" is not "kind-of" famous, he is extremely famous. Like a Jim Carey/Brian Adams kind-of famous. When I told my husband that I had lunch with Evandro Mesquita, he gasped.

-Really? You had lunch with Evandro Mestiqua? I grew up with the Blitz! I loved them! I remember doing a lot of impersonations of Evandro with my sister and my cousins when I was a kid.

Grew up with the Blitz? Oh, boy, I knew what that meant. Full-on 80's! Brace yourself.

The Real Honest Truth about Living in Rio

Everyday by the nature of being an expat, I tip-toe the fine line between being honest and being a jerk. For example, how do you express with love and respect, that drivers here are blockheads? How do I hide my sickly smile when I see my kid's three year old classmates wearing lipstick and eyeshadow? How can I stop wishing that the lady in the gym would shut her mouth, stop gossiping with her personal trainer about a friend of a friend's mother who works for this guy and blah, blah, blah, and actually work out? Or that everybody would stop calling every girl they meet, a princess? How can I get enjoyment out of washing my shoes, my kid's bike wheels and my stroller because we've inadvertently ran over some dog shit, yet again? How, I ask? How can I pretend again, and again, that talking about manicures is interesting?

Isn't living in Rio so awesome? Yes. I won't lie, it has some outstanding, super shinny moments. But to get to those outstanding, super shinny things, you have to risk your life in traffic, you have to know where you're going, you have to lock your car doors, you have to put on sun-screen and bug repellent, you have to stand in line, and bring a folder with your marriage certificate, your passport, your driver's license, your birth certificate and a doctor's note.

But isn't the beach awesome? Yes. I won't lie. I love to look at it from my dining room table. Honestly though, the awesomeness of hauling two bags full of beach crap and convincing a whinny three year old that it's fun to dig in the sand under the hot sun and not being able to go in the water because the waves will take him away, wares off. And on weekends, you can stake your spot at 8 am, but soon enough, your view of the water will disappear as a wall of umbrellas and butts close in on you. It's awesome.

What about Brazilians? Aren't they friendly, vibrant people? Yes. They are. On a daily "hey, there" kinda way, everyone is super friendly, courteous and they greet me with a smile.  The thing is Brazilians have jobs, and after work, they sit in their cars for hours and when they finally arrive home to watch the game, I'm asleep. So, sadly, I can't say I've made any Brazilian friends, yet.

Apparently, the first year living abroad is the hardest, blogger Rachel from "Rachel's Rantings in Rio" attests to that and that's what most of my expat friends have told me. And while I'm so grateful for the few expat friends I've made, I don't really feel part of this group either. I'm not a Shell, or Texaco or Schlumberger wife. I don't have that "came from Singapore, going to South Africa next kinda nonchalant being an expat is second nature" attitude, but I do aspire to get some that.

It's hard to know sometimes, what contributes to the trials and tribulations of being an expat and what is just the nature of being a newly turned 40 year old who might be tired of being a stay-at-home mom, but I'm bored. I may have been bored back home on the 33rd consecutive day of winter rain, but I had my own life. I had friends. My boy had friends. My parents were near. And even though I had lived in Vancouver for almost 30 years, the city still gave me lots to enjoy. Blogger Rachel insists that comparing makes expat life the hardest, but I think she's wrong. It's not comparing that wrecks it. It's the loneliness.

I'm not unfamiliar with loneliness abroad. Years ago, I spent three years in Korea teaching English. Among the seemingly never ending comings and goings of my students, I sporadically connected with a few on a slightly deeper level, but the teacher-student relationship couldn't really be completely erased and I never felt I could really say what was on my mind. The only other two expats in my city didn't want to hang with me because I wasn't interested in spreading the word of the Lord or bedding some Korean "chicks". By the second year, I was ready to go home, but when my friend Meg said she wanted to come and join me, I stayed on and Korea was fun again. Thank God for Meg. I really believe that if you have real friend, and this friend knows how to make light of living abroad, you can live anywhere.

So, who wants to be my friend? I swear I'm not always such a downer. I'm dying to have some fun. I will gladly have a few caipirinhas at two in the afternoon and try on a full-body leopard print work-out leotard if that's what it takes to shake things up around here!

Meg and I playing mini-golf

Sometimes My Life Feels Like a Foo-Foo and Wipe-Up Puppet Show

And then it's this thing and then another; a long string of moments all strung up willy nilly, like beads from a thousand broken necklaces all restrung without any sense of order or style. That's what the month of October was like, a miss-mash of days and emotions; anticipation of three birthdays to orchestrate, decorate and celebrate, my brother-in-law's, my mother's and my husband's with Thanksgiving smack in the middle.

On my mother's birthday, my grand-mother passed, and my husband went awol with work demands, car repairs and the sale of his apartment. I mourned my grand-mother and encouraged my mother to keep every word in the beautiful speech she prepared for the funeral. On the afternoon of the funeral, sad that I couldn't be with my family, I snuck away with my sister-in-law and my boy to decorate a fake cake with play-doh to trick my husband on his birthday, and totally fooled him. That weekend, we slept in a tent and rode a moped with our boy for the first time. We laughed when he fed his grand-pa's pet chickens, but cried when the roosters woke us up at 3 in the morning.

I was sad to miss this year's Thanksgiving turkey, but way too lazy to run around town to look for non-existent ingredients only to burn it all in my possessed oven with two settings, mostly burned or hardly charred. I missed my brothers. I missed my friends. I wished they would call and check up on me. I felt sorry for myself. I checked up on them.

And then it was Halloween, and costumes, and special snacks for school, a friend's new baby, homework for Portuguese class, school fees to pay, real-estate papers to sign, a new employee at work to welcome, and passport photos to be done, redone, cropped and re-cropped. Protests shutting down the neighborhood, too many coffees and cakes, hauling heavy grocery bags from the farmer's market on the hottest, most humid day of the year, standing at the counter savoring my $10 pomegranates, starting oil painting, Lebanese feasts shared with friends, bowling with my boy for the first time, pedaling, running, climbing stairs, getting the front door key jammed in the keyhole, having a fit over the saran-wrap that keeps sticking to itself, playing trains for the millionth time, and entertaining a screaming kid in the car with Foo-foo and Wipe-Up, his smelly sock puppets. A little marital break-down thrown in the mix, which we quickly tuned-up with some kind words and more hugs, and an impromptu "date" at our favorite restaurant when our boy fell asleep in the stroller. Then, a call from my husband's father, who is ill and in the hospital for various unknown problems. We visit. We circle the hospital. We wait. We keep the boy entertained with Foo-Foo and Wipe-Up all the way back to the city.

And the thing is, there's a thread that runs through all these days filled with delight, sadness, self-pity, adventure, creativity, grieving, worry, stress, silliness, savoring, sharing, hugging, kissing, playing, working, blowing candles, it's love. And thank God for that. And pad-thai after a long day on the road.

My boy made sure those chickens were well fed all day long.