The Showbiz of Foodbiz
I’ve often thought that food and drink are an addiction for me. Of course I eat to survive, but the reality is that I can quite comfortably eat just about whatever and whenever I want(save daily omakase courses or medium rare prime rib dinners). You get my drift. Instead of hunting down my food, all I, or any number of people in the US have to do is simply walk into a grocery or enter their local restaurant of choosing to be presented with an array of nourishment options.
I don’t know about where all of you dear readers reside, but here in LA county there’s an amazing number of restaurants. And it seems to me, at least among my age group of 20-30somethings, that less people are cooking at home on a daily basis. Perhaps that’s because we’ve grown weary of making the same 10 recipes our mothers fed us on a yearly basis, or maybe it can be blamed on the high cost of living which in turn means cramming your life into a living situation with 5 other bachelors and a shared kitchen in which all your groceries(and beer) get eaten before you can so much as think about baking a chicken. And don’t even dream about busting out the Henckels set with those roomies around. I shiver to think of slicing tomatoes with the cutlery that currently rattles around in the community drawer of my house.
As a food addict…er, I mean enthusiast, I have often felt conflicted. When I grocery shop, I try to find fresh healthy foods. I read labels. I inspect, smell, and caress peaches. C’mon, they’re soft! I look at ingredients, fat, calories, and so on.
Yet when I dine out most of this focus disappears. That’s not to say I’m not one picky forager. I have and will continue to pick apart the presentation, the preparation, and the overall taste. However, when I eat out very freaking rarely do I have the luxury(if ever) to read the ingredients in addition to some fancy schmancy menu item poetry description of the dish or know just how many more calories I’m inducting into the ranks of my already well-stocked fat cell reserves. Without that information, I can try my hardest to eat healthy, but it ain’t gonna happen. Invariably, I end up eating some totally unhealthy food because I don’t want to be the biatch who makes their waiter go back and ask the chef 15 million questions and subsequently get their food molested.
The sad part is, the above is a best case scenario for me eating out. Since getting softcore into this foodiast thing, I have knowingly and willingly eaten stuff that is completely bad for you(and it doesn’t even take a dummy to know that) just because it was/is/will be the newest food craze or restaurant in town. Case in point: any number of tacos, gelato, xiao long baos, frozen yogurt(ahem, Pinkberry), or cupcake I’ve ingested in the past couple years. Even noodles have become the newest member of my junk food repertoire, and it is with much regret that I must say that ramen is not good for me. *tear*
Perhaps there are those who can eat equally unhealthy at home and away without so much as an occasional cringe, and I salute you. I used to think it would be a swell gig to be a salaried and award-winning food critic. Then I realized the frequency with which they are required to eat mass quantities of scrumptious free food and saw the long-term effects of such on these people. Heck, elite Yelpers are a great case study into the effects of too much eating and drinking even after a short year.
So since the beginning of this year I’ve been making a concerted effort to eat healthier and be more active. Getting a full-time job helped that situation immensely(not as a salaried food critic). The bigger change came about 3 weeks ago when I got some stomach virus going around. On my day off too-Murphy’s Law! I didn’t eat much for the week following that. I started cutting out noodles and white rice, crackers, chips, candy, all that crap. I was eating primarily lean meat, vegetables, and fruit. The good news is, I still am.
Because I like to be behind in trends, I recently subscribed to Netflix. Since frugal is my (other) middle name, I signed up for 1 DVD at a time. So in between waiting for DVDs in the mail I began watching food related documentaries instantly on my laptop. The first one was “King Corn“, then “McLibel” and “The Future of Food“. Food, Inc isn’t out on DVD yet, but I’ve already got it saved in my queue.
These movies may blow your mind; they may make you quit eating anything as you succumb to horrifying paranoia about everything you send down the old esophagus. Truthfully, what I saw in the movies came at only mild shock as honestly, I know damn well I haven’t been paying attention to what I eat. They were like a gentle wind at my back supporting my recent decision to start caring about what goes into my body. If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s to question everything and research as much as you can, which can be good advice for just about everything in life.
Just get to the point already, will ya? Okay, point being that if you don’t care what you eat in or out of the house, fine–but you should. And if you’re the sort like me who was buying “organic” foods and cooking well at home but eating like a paid food critic outside the house–think again. The food industry has to get paid. That’s understandable. However, the mainstream companies we buy food from are doing it to turn a profit and use clever marketing. Research ingredients in the food you have at home, shop local and at farmers markets, take another close look at those labels when you shop, and I’m sorry to say it, but eat out less.
Major Linkage:
- Local Harvest/Farmers Markets/Family Farms/CSA/Organic Food
- Eat Wild-Grass Fed Beef
- Eat Well Guide-Find good food
- Food Routes-Where does your food come from? Buy Local.
- Slow Food-not fast food
And now, some shots from the Vegas McDonald’s from January during the CES show. Very cool interior design–right across from the Riviera Casino.
Friends of mine recommend reading “Skinny Bitch” (”Fat Bastard” for men) to find out about what is in the food we eat. I was also amazed at how making cows eat grains instead of grass, changed the chemical make-up of Omega fatty acids in beef. Eating wisely, and healthfully is much harder than it should be.
Skinny Bitch is a humorous book–I read it a couple years back although I didn’t feel it had very useful information. It’s a very light read with some topical “bitchy” advice. I agree, eating healthy requires a proactive awareness to what’s going into your body at all times. It’s even made a bit harder considering that eating fast food and most restaurant food is considered the norm amongst most of our friends. It’s hard to quit doing something when all your friends are doing it too.
Very well written! I know I don’t stop in often, but you’re still in my google reader so I still read everything you write and I like these posts of self inflection. = )
Thanks, Alex, and it’s good to hear that you haven’t given up on my writing yet! I’m just wondering when you’re going to get a blog of your own(complete with Angus pics of course).