Indieoma

Ephiphanies can be funny things. My most recent came over pancakes in the form of high-fructose corn syrup-laden syrup (which actually seems like the one place where it might make sense, no?). My wife usually pays the premium and gets Grade B maple syrup, but we were out and we don’t live near a store that carries it. I won’t drag this out. The mass-produced, familiar brand was horrible, tasted like liquid plastic and completely ruined breakfast.

One part of me was pleased that I could tell the difference, but most of me was just apalled. We know wine experts can train their pallettes. Apparently we’re practicing the reverse.

I don’t know where you fit on the food awareness scale. I’ve recently, but pretty gradually, moved from “totally oblivious” to “farmer’s market fan boy.” It has been a sordid mix of elation, embarrassment and disgust. I totally get the disdain for someone preaching their passion for something they love, so I’ll spare everyone the foodie-geek evangelism. On top of that, I haven’t gone vegetarian. I’m not joining PETA and think eco-terrorists are assholes. And from what I’m hearing from some of you out there, not that far off from the general consensus (apparently we like our music and our spices a little obscure).

That said, I’m joining the chorus of people wondering what we’re thinking when it comes to what we eat.

How did we become so careless? How did we become so willing to take our eating cues from people that don’t have our best interest in mind – specifically advertising agencies that represent clients selling “products” that are more chemistry than nature, creating manufactured want rather than meeting a genuine need. Michael Pollan’s “In Defense of Food” makes a great point about lost the knowledge of food that has occurred over just a few generations as food became industrialized and marketers learned how to ring our Pavlovian bells.

Think that’s a harsh statement? Let’s run down the list of the globe’s most famous brands:
Coke
Pepsi
Pringles
Oreos
Lays
Cheerios
Frosted Flakes

Want more…?

Look at the ingredients and food value of any McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, KFC, Taco Bell meal.

Not much food value there… but it’s not poison, so technically it’s food… If you go by the legal definition.

And if you eat enough of it, you forget what the real thing tastes like after awhile. I’m not sure it isn’t an al Qaeda plot.

But wait!! There’s more!! The industrialization of beef production has:
a) created the second largest source of green house gas emissions on the planet,
b) created demand for half of the antibiotics consumed in the U.S., and
c) changed the nature of the fat in beef to make it unhealty. If cows actually ate what their stomachs were designed to digest (grass, not corn) they’d have all those nice, healthy omega-rich fatty acids that people taut about eating fish.

See In Defense of Food, The Omnivore’s Dilemma and the Mark Bittman video in “Strong Voices” for the details.

Bottom line, we’ve allowed bad science to run amok and watched while others created a mess of our food supply. It’s up to the grass roots to make change. Here are a few links, that will lead you to loads more, if you’re motivated:
- Michael Pollan
- Mark Bittman
- Slow Food
- Local Harvest (U.S. Farmer’s Markets)