#2- chicken soup for the slowly poisoned soul
We hear A LOT about food in America. Don’t eat carbs, only eat carbs, the prune juice diet works, if you want to lose 20 lbs. in 2 days- amputate an arm, etc. We're absolutely obsessed with food. If 10% of the time I spent talking about food, diets and people with eating disorders (of whom I’m openly jealous btw) were instead spent working out, eating right and/or contemplating the crises’ in the Middle East- I’d be 50lbs lighter, 100% healthier and the ambassador to Syria. Hilariously, for all of the calories we burn talking endlessly about our diets and what fruits cure herpes (none)- we are some of the unhealthiest people on this planet. Our rate of obesity and obesity-related diseases is astounding. The diet industry is one of the most profitable in the country (just behind the “whatever Oprah’s reading” industry) and has sold us the idea that we can become thin, healthy, & beautiful by eating the utter shit- filled with preservatives and chemicals and misinformation- they feed us.
It seems hypocritical to besmirch our food-obsessed culture and those who profit from said obsession by adding to the cacophony of bullshit already out there. But in the end, I couldn’t NOT include it because, simply, we NEED food. We can’t live without it and so the fact that we are being slowly poisoned by the chemicals, preservatives, pesticides and litany of other crap you need a PhD in nutrition to pronounce in it is significant. The American food industry- from the FDA to corporate farms to your neighborhood grocery store- is completely fucked right down to the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop.
The sad truth of the matter is that MOST of what is on the grocery shelves is bad for you- even if it says it’s fat free, lowers cholesterol and has a free toy inside. Because food is a for profit industry, the information we have available to us is, like our food, mostly tainted. There's so much crappy info about new diets and food flying at us daily it feels like a Baz Luhrmann movie on meth. At the same time, there's such a suspicious dearth of objective and honest studies on food that it makes you wonder what really happened to Tupak. If they can make ice cream for astronauts, they can certainly make food that doesn't kill us. Our animals are being pumped with hormones and antibiotics. Our microwave meals have more preservatives then Janice Dickenson's face. Even the "healthy, fat free, no preservatives, low sodium, zero trans fat" food is packed with more chemicals than a Vietamese nail shop.
A company lying to us about their products is not kosher- but it’s also not new. The tobacco industry is the classic example. It sucks, but on the other hand, who really thought smoking was ok for you? But the situation with food is out of control because food isn’t a choice (like cigarettes) it's a necessity. And as a basic necessity, it should be regulated- NOT based on profit, but on HEALTH. Charging you an arm and a leg for fake Cinnabon flavored oatmeal is not only robbery; it’s assault with a chemical weapon. And after years of eating a crap-infused diet, the food industry’s profit turns into the diet industry’s profit and their profit eventually turns into the health insurance and prescription industries’ profit because by now you’re fat, depressed, have diabetes, a kid with autism and no idea how long that can of green beans has been there but hot damn! it’s still good.
For all you ever need to know about food, please read: The Omnivore's Dilemma & In Defense of Food
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