Thanksgiving in New Orleans

I spent this thanksgiving here, in New Orleans. My friend's mother is a famous local chef, and made some amazing traditional Louisiana dishes that I'd never had before. Completely disregarding my attempts to not eat meat, I had fried turkey for the first time with oyster dressing, creamed carrots, and some sortof baked dish I can't recall the name of. This reminded me of rule #29 which says to mix up the types of foods you eat and try new things. If I were to eat food like that all the time, I would definitely not have the healthiest of diets. But some of those items would be a good addition to my diet; the creamed carrots for example, and the oyster dressing which had more vegetables and less butter than my traditional idea of dressing which closely resembles stove top stuffing. Experiencing traditions of a different culture reminded me alot of how many things we can adopt to our own diets in order to resemble those of other cultures, taking the best and most health-conscious ideas from every culture, (including cultures within the United States) and including them in our "American" diets to become more well-rounded.