I'd like cheese on my entire family!: When Food Attacks!

This blog I discovered was pretty illuminating. At surface level, it is really easy to say that I don't have food issues.  To actually think about it, I probably have enough issues to warrant a subscription. (Sorry for the lame pun.)  America is such a weird food place.  I've been to lots of other countries where the combination of assigning values to food, coupled with the obsession to fit an arbitrary, unrealistic, and unhealthy body image are just not present.  In Germany, most of the people I met were pretty Americanized, socially, so our irreverent, idiotic way of imposing our ridiculous beliefs and standards onto others is pretty apparent.  I noticed some of this in France, as well, but I will preface this statement with the fact that most of my time in France was in Paris, perhaps the tourism capitol of Europe...

I just got my lunch from a 7-11.  There are so many many many things wrong with this statement.  Instead of a nutritious, well balanced, planned meal, I, like most college students, opted for something quick, unhealthy, sometimes in a bar-form, and loaded with chemicals.  The college-food trifecta: cheap, quick, and accessible!

I have also been guilty of buying into the "healthy label" nonsense.  I drink diet soda, use Splenda in my coffee, eat sugar-free candy, pick baked chips over fried chips, etc.  None of this really has anything to do with health.  None of these products are necessarily healthier than their regular counterparts.  The healthy alternative is the water and fruit or vegetable that I'm swapping out for coffee and chips.  I must also disclaimer that I am a vegetarian (usually vegan, but sometimes I have a dairy relapse). But I knowingly keep using artificial sweetener and "low sodium" soy sauce on my lo-mein, because it has been instilled in me that to eat sugar leads to fat, and to have fat is to fail, and that to fail is unacceptable.  Eating sugar, by proxy, is unacceptable.

I did not see very many artificial sweeteners in Europe during the two years I lived there.  Mostly, there were packets of Equal, compulsory for diabetes compliance, but not the plethora of chemicals in a rainbow assortment that we Americans stand by.  

I began to associate these feelings I'd had with some American myths that get perpetuated here, (especially after my humble beginnings into Women's Studies). I now know why I do what I do.  I still get diet soda, but it is because I don't really like the taste of regular sucrose (what makes granulated sugar sweet), and I eat junk food, and I smoke.  I no longer see this consumerism as a massive failure on my part.  I might choose to make healthier decisions, but they are no longer deeply rooted in my American phobia of missing the ideal body size.  I eat things which I like, mostly in moderation.  Food should be about nutrition, not statistics and numbers on the back of a package.  I have, to this day, not seen a banana with nutritional content painted on the peel (which I'm sure makes some people uneasy, I'm sure).  

If you want a cookie, eat a cookie, for chrissake! Kudos, blog, kudos. 

I'd like cheese on my entire family!: When Food Attacks!: "Many, many years ago, I stopped assigning moral value to food. Nommy noms are no longer 'good' or 'bad,' they are just food. Cakes are..."