Mad About Food

I’m mad about food. Stay with me. I’d like to apologize for my critiques of other people’s food choices. Go ahead, take pictures of your food.  Buy baby-cut carrots. Call yourself vegetarian while eating coconut whipping cream shipped halfway across the world. Enjoy those chicken and beef products that never got a hug or a name or a chance to run. Love that low-fat ice cream and yoghurt. I’ll shut up.

I’m mad about a few things. First, the way we criticize each other’s food choices, based mostly on research financed by the people who want us to buy their products. They’ve sucked us in and we haven’t noticed. Remember when research told us to wash egg yolks down the drain, take lipid drugs to reduce our cholesterol levels, stop eating lard? A few years later, hey, um, maybe that was premature. Go ahead, gobble up the yolks. We put in our mouths the same kind of food we put in our brains. Why not? We’ve grown accustomed to crap.

[Diversion: Dad’s favorite joke. Q: Why does the ocean roar? A: You would, too, if you had that many crabs on your bottom.]

And by the way, have you ever looked at your tummy? ...as if I didn’t already know I was climbing up and down the Ideal Weight Table. Going up, I become more and more worthless. Going down, well, maybe not quite so bad. Better post some bodies from ads on the refrigerator.

“Stop it!” says Virginia. “You’re a wonderful person. It’s the inside that counts.”

Right, what we put inside, like all the stuff we see, read and hear tells us. Give yourself a break, and all your friends, too. Enjoy the food you choose to like and let them enjoy theirs.