CON #2: Eating habits - meat, meat, meat

I finished my previous post with words 'greasy food', so let me just get on with that. To most of the people this isn't necessarily a negative thing, but if you happen to be a vegetarian or simply don't like eating meat that much, you're going to have a bad time here. Since I happen to fall under this category, to me serbian cousine goes under cons (I can beat that if you're serbian, you're probably rolling your eyes now), but as I said it is a rather positive thing to most Serbs and apparently tourists as well. Our traditional cousine is also one of our strongest brands when it comes to tourism.

So as you've probably guessed by now, main part of our cousine is meat (*cough* dead animals *cough*), served in every possible way. And most of Serbs seem to have a problem when you mention you don't eat meat (don't ever dare to use the unholy word 'vegetarian'). People here have some sort of aversion and prejudice towards those who don't like this kind of food and can often feel insulted or make fun of you. They just take it too personal I guess. Maybe they even think you're trying to brag about it and rub it in their face, which is rarely or never the actual case.

The average serbian family eats a lot of processed meat on every day basis. Processed meat of every kind is the most common grocery here: salami, sausages, pates (sort of a meat paste). So it is basically, meat for breakfast, meat for lunch and for dinner. But who knows what kind of stuff they put into all this and if that is genuine meat at all.

Most of the kids here have a bad habit of buying their breakfast in bakery stores, where they usually get pizza, rolled sausage, or some other kind of pastry. Or they buy our version of burger called pljeskavica. These burger stores are literally everywhere, in every corner. Pretty unhealthy way to start your day off...

Remember that saying 'You are what you eat'. So yes, food you eat greatly affect your health. In Serbia, people have a rather short average life expectancy and I assume it's mostly because of the way they eat. Also, they live a lot under stress and have many other problems to deal with, so the food is not the only thing to blame. And when people here get ill, they just grab the first medicine that has been transcribed to them by a doctor and drug themselves to death. They're not even trying to find the root of the problem and maybe consider changing ther eating habits.

Typical serbian street market - plenty of vegetables and fruit

Of course, I am not saying that all serbian food is bad. It's just these things that are being sold to us in stores. I haven't seen anybody here promoting fresh vegetables and fruit, only this processed foods. And we have plenty of wheat, vegetables and fruits that we're growing here in Serbia - corn, potatoes, tomatoes, cabbage, beans, peppers, plums, apples, peaches, cherries, apricots, strawberies, raspberries, you name it. As a matter of fact, Serbia is (one more fun fact) world's biggest exporter of raspberries. We also import all other kinds of vegetables and fruit, so you can say that food available here is quite rich and diverse. And all our people praise and crave is meat.