World Cup Joy, Ranch Dressing Fever & America Is NOT the Fattest Nation on Earth

After view. After view. Number 10. Far away. Cover his mouth. Decision is a red card. Engel, Fort Worth star telegram, Ingle Engel podcast here in the Sunset Lounge. Happy July, everybody. Happy birthday to me. I am turning 53 soon. I look 52 reminds me of an angry email that I recently received from a reader who accused me of using Botox, dying my hair, and spray tan. I took that as a compliment, actually. Little did he know how much I would never do any of those things because as anybody who knows me, I'd rather die than spend money. Abbreviated episode. I'm going be taking the rest of most of the rest of the month off for personal and work stuff and all kinds of fun. But I did want to touch on one thing. Because I have talked a lot about this twenty twenty six world cup. And, I, as I've said on this podcast and anybody who has ears, this is not something I expected to enjoy this much. I've covered sporting events before and I thought, well, you know, it's just another sporting event and it'll be neat, but, it's just not at the end of the day, it's just another sporting event. And oh my gosh, have I been delightfully wrong. This has been as much fun as anything I've had the pleasure, and good fortune of having covered and attended over twenty five or thirty years. It's just been so much fun. And as I've said before, it's because of the people and the atmosphere and the joy and the passion of all of it. And not only just the passion of all of it, but just the kind passion of all of it. This world cup has been something that I've been hearing about. And when I say this world cup, I mean the twenty twenty six world cup hosted here in North America. This is something that I've been hearing about for a decade plus. Now, for those of you who don't remember, The United States thought that we were going to be hosting this world cup in at least either 2018 or 2022. Because if you remember, go way back more than a decade, FIFA was going through the bidding process. And I mean, just call it the bribe process back then. FIFA was going through that process and it was going to award this around 2012. It was going to award it's next to, destinations on the same day. They were going to award 2018 and 2022 on the same day. And American soccer officials were convinced that The United States was going to get one of those two dates. They were sure of it. They were completely 100% confident of it because we had had so much success in 1894. The 1994 event springboarded and catapulted the sport to a level in this country that hadn't previously existed, and FIFA officials were certainly going to do the right thing and bring back its premier event and its cash cow to The United States in either 2018 or 2022. It was gonna be one or the other. And the day that FIFA officials made that announcement that it was going to go to Russia in 2018 and then Qatar in 2022, you could have heard all of this FIFA pardon me, United States soccer officials who were involved in that process vomit all over the floor. Not a pin drop, but they were sick that they didn't get either '18 or '22. And what they really felt like justifiably is that they, they, they got end around it, outflanked, outmaneuvered, and basically outbought by officials from Russia and Qatar. Now, of the, one of the things that has happened either in FIFA or the International Olympic Committee is that they, governing bodies, have tried to put their respective big events in developing nations, mostly as a means to advance those societies, third world countries, developing nations, at the great crushing expense of sometimes of those countries. And they've gotten a lot of criticism over it. Justifiably, FIFA put its world cup in South South Africa. It was a nice gesture. FIFA put its, world cup in Brazil to a lot of criticism because, and the same thing for the Olympic games when the summer Olympics went to, Rio, It's more like you're kidding me. You're spending all this money on all these facilities and all of these people are poor and don't have any money to feed themselves. Like, what are we doing? So I think both the governing bodies, the officials of both respective governing bodies heard all of that criticism and decided, okay, we're going to put our events in developing nations, first world countries, countries that have the infrastructure in place can to do it and or they have the money to do it, which is how Cutter got the 2022 bid ahead of North America. So I've been hearing about all of this, covering it for a decade plus. So when finally North America was given the World Cup, it was more like, yeah, okay, we've been expecting this for eight to ten years. Well, now it's here. And unbelievably, it's delivered. It's been so much fun. It's been great. Dallas Fort Worth, specifically Dallas Stadium. They're going to host by the end of the tournament, a tournament most nine matches, which is an astonishing feat if you think about it. Arlington, Texas will host more world cup matches than Los Angeles, New York, New Jersey, or Miami. Chicago didn't even participate because they thought city leadership at the time thought this is such a raw deal from FIFA. We're not even going to do this. And I don't even necessarily blame them because they're not wrong. But Dallas Fort Worth participated in it. So did Los Angeles, Mexico City, Toronto, Vancouver, Kansas City, etcetera, etcetera, and said, we're going to be all in. And it has been terrific. Now what it's done for tourism and all those other things, I don't know. They can make up numbers however they want. But what I what I do know is that if you take on the surface, Dallas Fort Worth, and the fact that we got more matches ahead of Los Angeles, ahead of San Francisco, ahead of New York, ahead of Philadelphia, ahead of Boston, ahead of Miami is incredible because unlike all of those other cities that I just mentioned, we are not Dallas Fort Worth is not a place that you would go spend a vacate your vacation dollars on. There is nothing really on the surface tourism friendly where we live because we have no great geographical pull to this region of the country. There is none. There's no mountain to hike. There's no mountain to ski on. There's no big giant body of water to swim in. We have some lakes, but not like Michigan. We don't have the Atlantic Ocean. We don't have the Pacific Ocean. What we have is a lot of developed prairie land. That's what we have. And warm weather. That's it. That's our hook. And also what we have is a top tier entertainment facility in AT And T Stadium developed by the city of Arlington and the Dallas cowboys. 2005 to 2008, whatever it was. And then it opened in 2009. That's what we have. That's it. And somehow, someway that feature was able to catapult us ahead of one of a few of the great tourist cities in the world, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, Florida, Philadelphia, Boston, certainly New York City and New York City will host the final because it's New York City. Hello. It's Mike Reiner of Your Dark Companion here. Let me ask you. Are you looking for something to fill the long dead air hours of your day? Well, join the Sunset Lounge DFW and your dark companion on patreon.com, YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts. Replace those sad, slow hours with sports, pop culture, and music woven into interesting conversations. So step inside the green door, have a seat at the bar, and get in the groove with those shows and so very much more. I've been able to attend today will be my seventh and last match that I won't be able to attend. It's Spain and Portugal. I'm very excited about it because the atmosphere at these things has just been terrific. I've enjoyed it so much. It's been great. And one detail to this World Cup that I have enjoyed so much that I never expected, and I'm sure people have seen it, are all of these foreigners who've come to our home, who've come to The United States to live and and visit The United States in America for the first time. Now, certainly because of social media and God knows how many movies, they have some vision of what America is. But it's a lot different when you actually go there and see it and meet the people and experience it with your own eyes. And you can feel it. You can touch it, so to speak. And it gives you a completely different perspective about the people, their land, and their culture. It's been one of the best things I ever did in my life, which was to travel abroad and to see how these places live, breathe, and what you really see is the similarities. Obviously, foods are different and there's some behavioral quirks and idiosyncrasies that are all unique to those specific destinations. But what you really see is we're really not that much different. A little bit here and there, but not that much. But it has been just a joy to see people loving our home and, and, and, even struggling with parts of our homes, specifically the traffic. But there's one part to this, one part to this that really stuck out, and I'm sure you've seen it. And that is the foreign traveler who comes to The United States and goes to our restaurants and sees just how much food that a lot of American restaurants give its customers. And it's something that when I travel abroad, I'm like, wait a minute, where's, where's the rest? And then after I'm done eating, I think, oh, wait a minute, kind of glad we didn't get anything else because I'm sort of full. So there's three different parts to this with sort of a kicker that is sort of a surprise. And that is America of all of the developed nations is usually called the fattest nation on earth. We've heard that a lot. Right? And as we've seen these travelers come to America to, to watch these world cup matches and then spend, you know, sometimes maybe a week, two or two and a half weeks to follow their teams around the country, they're eating and drinking here and they're seeing, oh, this is so amazing. As they go into a gas station and they get what should be a 12 ounce can of Coca Cola. But here, because of fountain drinks, we can have 24 ounces of Coca Cola, 48 ounces, or 88 ounces of Coca Cola followed up with the kicker of free refills, because that really tells you how cheap it is to make a Coca Cola or any soft drink. And I'm not above it. I will say this. One of the hardest things that I have to give up is soda, not soda out of a can, soda out of a bottle, plastic bottle I don't like, but soda out of a fountain machine. Get me a sub of that crack. I love it. And it is the hardest thing for me to walk away from it. In fact, if I'm in front of one of the machines, I have to overload it with ice. Because if I overload it with ice, that means it'll take down actually how much I'm drinking and it give me a puncher's chance. So there's that one. I've enjoyed the heck out of that. There's two other ones that I've enjoyed. And that is when these people go to Tex Mex restaurants and they see bottomless chips. This bag here cost me about $4.99 And what I've recognized, if I go to a Mexican food restaurant and they start bringing me out Tex Mex, my stomach somehow expands to the size of Nebraska. I can just keep eating it, eating it, eating it. It doesn't even faze me. And I've got a full, I've got an entree coming up and I can just sit here and crush these all day. And then, so you have these travelers coming in from overseas, like, this is amazing. I can't believe they just keep bringing them out. Yes. They just keep bringing them out because again, that tells you how inexpensive it is to make some of these items that we just cannot stop devouring. And then there's the last one. Now this is not my thing, but I've been fascinated by it. And that is the foreign travelers' lust for ranch dressing. I'm not a dressing guy. I don't know why. I never really developed a taste for it, but dressing has become crack cocaine to the point where for these foreign travelers, they're trying to hoard it and bring it over. Well, you can have this. I'll sell it to you for $3,468 for a limited time only. So as I sat here and I watched all these things and I thought, you know what? All this does is reinforce the idea that America is the fattest nation on earth. This is why we're so fat. Because we get all this horrible food that's laced with sugar and salt and sodium and all these things that are going to kill us. This is why we're so fat. So I looked this up and I thought, you know what? I'm going to look up once and for all, are we the fattest nation on earth? And I have great news, phenomenal news. We are not the fattest nation on earth. So who is the fattest nation on earth? Well, I looked this up, and this is according to worldobesity.org. Worldobesity.org. And, you know, I, I will say this. I, having covered professional football, NFL football, I'm always a little reluctant to embrace the whole obesity chart. I think there's some real flaws to that because I've seen some NFL players. I'm not talking about offensive linemen, defensive linemen, defensive ends, linebackers who would just fit into the window of obesity. And I'm like, yeah, I don't know about that. But nonetheless, let me move on. So as I looked this up, I thought certainly America is going to be top three. And they, this particular chart factors in the world bank income level, which is a very important detail because one of the more amazing things and more bigger indictments about our state of health and specifically obesity in this country is the fact that a lot of the people who live under the normal income level are obese. It's not because, because the food that we eat is just, it's junk and everybody knows that. So, but I digress. So this is according to the worldobesity.org chart, American Samoa ranks number one. Number one, seventy five point nine point two percent of their inhabitants rank as obese. And as I sit here and name some of these countries off, you're going to see a theme here. Number two, Tonga, upper middle income. That's a surprise. Let's go down to number eight, Samoa, upper middle income. Number nine, French Polynesia, high income, 49%. 11, Bahamas, high income. That's interesting. 48%. We don't get to all of these countries listed here are island countries, including a few of them I can't even pronounce. 14, St. Kitts And Nevis. It's a very small country. 46.65. We're not seeing any of the big nations here in the top until, and this one floored me. Of all of the big countries that rank on this list, America unbelievably is not number one. Number one amongst the bigger countries, Egypt ranks fifteenth overall. Lower middle income, forty five point five nine percent of its inhabitants rank as obese. That's followed by Kuwait, a very small country. 17 is Qatar. And then 18 is Belize. And then nineteenth, there it is. The red, white, and blue, high income, forty two percent rank as obese, one tick ahead of Saudi Arabia. And then we have a handful of other nations that are much smaller. So I was pleasantly surprised by that. And I thought there's no way we'll be anything lower than fifth. Nope. I was incorrect. We are nineteenth. So I for some reason, I just I I took that as, like, some encouragement. I was like, well, that's good. We're not number one. We're not the fattest country on Earth. We probably won't win this World Cup, but we've done better than we've probably done ever before in any other world cup. We won a knockout match. That's amazing. We've won more games than we ever have before. And, and more importantly, we've confirmed something. Our food is great. Our nation is a hell of a lot of fun. We can throw one great party and we're not the fattest country on earth. See you next time. This is a Stolen Water Media production.