When in doubt ... fry

It was just released recently that Mississippi is officially the fattest state in the country. While this isn’t ground breaking news, it was noteworthy that we of the Magnolia State crossed into new territory for fatness. According to a study release by the Center for Disease Control, 31 percent of Mississippians are overweight.
I’m a part of that 31 percent and not ashamed to admit it. While I’m not a massive wall of fat, I’ve managed to store up a few extra pounds for a rainy day. But, what the CDC doesn’t take into account is how and why we got so fat.
How we got so fat is a time honored Mississippi tradition. We have good mommas and our mommas can cook. We’re told at a young age to clean our plates and when they’re serving up country fried steak, creamed potatoes candy yams it’s not much of a chore to eat every morsel.
Doctors have long since denounced frying anything and in Mississippi we fry everything. From Twinkies to pickles, we’ll smother it in batter and drop it into some hot grease. One of the great sounds known to the Southern man is the moment a perfectly battered piece of chicken hits a cast iron skillet of grease.
If doctors ruled the world we wouldn’t cook anything in grease. Then generations of people would go their whole lives without enjoying a fish fry. They wouldn’t understand the simple goodness of a country fried steak covered in white gravy or the value of perfectly fried okra. With good grease the world would have been denied the opportunity to see of the great chick flicks of all time, Fried Green Tomatoes.
According to the study Colorado is the leanest state, with 17.6 percent of the population obese. I think the study is skewed somewhat because I don’t think that accurately reflect the true tonnage in Colorado. Most likely the thin air in the mountains causes the scales to be off. Either that or the lack of oxygen makes people not want to eat.
Mississippi also topped the charts on being active. Well, actually, Mississippi is the least active state in the country. We had the highest rate of adult of inactively at 31 percent, while Minnesota was the lowest at 15.4.
These numbers are also out of whack based on location. If you live in Mississippi you know it’s not any fun being active from June through early September. When the temperature gauge hits triple digits and the humidity is at 95 percent there’s no reason to overdo any physical activity. Air conditioning was invented for a reason and too much sun is bad for your healthy.
Folks from Minnesota don’t really do physical activity for their health; they do it by necessity. Up in the great blue north is gets so cold you have to move around some just to survive. In the middle of December if you just stand around outside doing nothing you’ll freeze right up and they’ll have to use blow torches to get you back mobile. Despite our bulk, we’re not too worried about the latest CDC study. Sure, we may have a little more girth than the average state, but we’re proud of it. When the rest of the country is ankle deep in tofu and we’ll eat high on the hog. I wonder if they ever tried frying tofu?