In Defense of Food?

Let's be honest, I am a bad foodie. As I mentioned before, I am an indiscriminate eater. I like food. Good food, bad food, whatever. And in this day and age of Michael Pollan and Mark Bittman, it's hard to make the right decisions.


I was never one of those vegans who felt the need to fight for the plight of the abused animal, but it is really getting harder and harder to eat the foods that I loved with a clean conscious. The reporting about the conditions of cattle and feed lots should be challenging the status quo more than Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. The argument to move from seed to leaf eating is convincing. And the industrialization of food should be cause for alarm to anyone with a sense of taste.

But civilization arose, developed, and modernized, through specialization. We no longer spend all of our resources simply trying to survive. And one of the prices we pay is to let others specialize in a food supply.

I don't smoke, I drink in moderation (well, I suppose that's debatable), I exercise, I take leisure time. But I don't eat well. Food will be the death of me. Yes, I'll have the bacon cheeseburger and fries. Yes I'll follow that with a red velvet cupcake. And what the hell, you convinced me to buy three donuts for a dollar (though I really don't need it).

Except what did I eat? Corn. It's cheap, it's everywhere, and it's rotting us inside and out. And yet I stand idly by as it continues to dominate my entire life. Because...damn if corn dogs aren't delicious, from the golden crispy corn bread coating to the corn fed meat dog on the stick (though, thinking of that visual, i'll admit, is a little offputting).

It's hard to be into food. The more I read and learn about any aspect of it, the less I should, on a conscious level, want to eat. What is a foodie supposed to do?

"We are living in a world today where lemonade is made from artificial flavors and furniture polish is made from real lemons"