It's Fall, and that means all across America farmers, agricultural groups and fried-food enthusiasts are gearing up for their respective state fairs. There will be no shortage of fried delicacies for those who go for the food - each year vendors come up with new ways to entice the batter-craving masses.
Fried Foods
Among the crispy culinary delights to be found at muddy fairgrounds in the south are fried cheese slices, fried candy bars, fried bananas and fried sticks of butter.
That last fatty snack debuted in Texas and had a grand inauguration to North Carolina at the Central Carolina Fair in Winston-Salem this year. Like many foods at such events, the butter is frozen, put on a stick and dipped in batter to become an alluring treat, if for no other reason than the fact that it's strange.
Creative Desserts
Bacon is also a star at many fairs - whether it's chicken-fried, engulfed in pork-fat or covered in chocolate. Yes, chocolate. This salty-sweet bacon-candy combo is the highly-advertised special new treat at the North Carolina State Fair this year.
And fairs aren't just frying foods anymore - now some are serving up fried drinks as well. How is this possible? Simply pour some Coca-Cola into the batter, fry it up and slather it with the Coke syrup used in vending machines. Put a squirt of whipped cream and a cherry on top and you've got a real treat...unless of course you're worried about your diet.
Bad For Your Health
Fair season is just the beginning of the seemingly endless battalion of holidays that will tempt our taste buds. Halloween is possibly the sugariest, followed by the tryptophan-induced laziness of Thanksgiving and then Christmas cookie mania.
The article in the Raleigh News & Observer linked above garnered a bit of controversy - with all of the news in recent years about the obesity epidemic our nation faces, why report on such fatty, sugar level-spiking foods, and with a picture of people stuffing their faces to boot?
It's all the saturated fat in fried food that clogs our arteries, annoys our livers and makes us pack on the pounds, and even though by now most of us know this, many of us still succumb to these snacks when we see or smell them at places like the state fair.
Food As A Drug
Some neuroscientists believe that we continue to eat food that we know is bad for us because food affects the brain in a way very similar to that of addictive drugs. Others, however, condemn this idea for making the person eating the food out to be a victim.
Whatever the reason, there has been a lot of research done to figure out what makes people go back to the same, usually unhealthy, foods over and over again.
One neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin, Ann Kelly, did research that suggests that we associate the feelings of satisfaction and happiness with certain foods using what she called "food-related cues." As this happens again and again our brains come to expect this stimulation - we begin to anticipate eating these foods with more and more excitement.
So when you find yourself at the state fair, about to buckle from the stress of avoiding the aisles of fried-food vendors, you can blame some of it on your neurons. But maybe settle for a candy apple this time.
Kaitlin Ugolik - Kaitlin graduated from Elon University in Elon, N.C. in May 2009 with a BA in Journalism. She has always loved writing, whether it be news ...
