In Stockholm and London where I divide my time living, organic and real food is the way to go. Where I usually shop and eat, people care about where their food has come from, how it's been produced, what it contains etc.
However, as soon as I go to Latin America, the story changes. Here, I am the weird Gringa girl who prefers to drink water instead of coke and who get's laughed at by my peers for browsing the supermarket for shelves looking for some non white bread.
In Chile, you are a campesina, an ignorant peasant from the village if you don't drink Coca Cola and eat donuts imported from the U.S. People think you're crazy if you turn down an American cookie in exchange for an apple from the backyard. Frankly, when I go there, people get so confused over why I tend to eat like I was a "poor village girl", though I'm a "rich" (no I'm not) big city girl.
Synthetic American food in Latin America has reached the status symbol it had 50 years ago in Europe: It's cool, its modern and people in Hollywood movies eat it! The thing is that we in Europe have now discovered what this pop culture food has done to us:, we are suffering from the consequences of TV dinners and donuts with obesity and diabetes.
We want to go back to basic in Europe, and are now focusing on organic and fresh-produced food whereas Latin America has just started to ignore the fruitful soil and instead are accepting Doritos, Twinkies and soda from its imperialistic neighbor.
This "friendship" comes with a price though: Obesity. Last time I was in Chile I heard the Health Ministration advertising on the radio, begging people to please stop eating cake and start eating salad. No joke. I saw huge and obese people, most of them who actually were poor and from the countryside where they probably had land to grow their own food, but instead had come to the city to work and live off McDonald's.
To all my Latino peeps: It's not too late - you have the most fruitful soil in the world and you are blessed, unlike us in Europe, with a climate which permits you to grow wonderful fruits and vegetables all year around. Don't by that cheap notion of an American dream with pop tarts and fast food - because that dream will actually kill you.