Although athletic, I have a rather typical Westerner's addiction to junk food that Beijing is sometimes unable to feed.

The health consequences are undeniable, but I blame my DNA, figuratively speaking. I'm from the first US junk food generation. For my earliest job, as a teen, I flipped burgers and slung fries at a local burger joint. You might say junk food (as well as a fair amount of cholesterol) is in my blood.

The frustrating quest to satisfy my cravings in Beijing calls to mind TV advertisements in the mid-1980s for US hamburger chain Wendy's. The ads posed the question, "Where's the beef?" - a dig at competitors' skimpy, or nearly absent, hamburger patties.