First World Food Problems

You know that PBS logo? It has the shooting star and then the phrase, “The more you know” appears underneath it? There’s a reason that’s an incomplete sentence; the more you know, especially in terms of healthy food, the more muddled things become.

I am a fairly health-conscious eater; I try to buy organic whenever possible, and rarely buy highly-processed food like Goldfish crackers or Captain Crunch cereal. I read about what’s good for my family on many different platforms, trying to wade through the muddy waters and find some clarity. But the only concise, utterly true fact that I have discovered is this: no one really knows.

Let me repeat that for you: no one really knows what the fuck they’re talking about.

The more I read, the more I am filled with guilt and shame for the food I put on the table. Gluten? Don’t buy anything with gluten in it. It basically doesn’t even resemble wheat anymore. And the process it goes through? Blasphemy. Who can remember the exact details…all I retained was BAD.

Dairy? Whoa, Nelly! All those cows are eating antibiotics and pesticides and freeway pollution. And it has to be organic. Not “natural”, because apparently companies are just screwing with us these days, and pasting the word “natural” on anything they please. What’s the requirement for labeling something “natural”? There is none.

You want to feed your family meat? Watch out. It has to be “grass fed”, “free-range” and “cruelty free”–all words I like, but if I ponder the notion that I want my meat to live a happy life, I ultimately reach the conclusion that they’d probably be better off without me eating them. And you know, remaining alive.

So maybe you decide to go half-vegetarian and you think to yourself, “I will buy some fish!” Right. Mosey down the fresh fish isle where will you find farmed salmon, injected with dye to appear pink. Also, levels of of mercury in some fishes are noted to be of concern. But then you also have to consider the radiation deposited into the ocean by Fukushima. I’ve read articles written by scientists on both sides of the argument, citing the levels of radiation found in various seafoods. I am not a scientist nor am I a marine biologist, but the idea of radiation being spilled into the ocean, then fish swimming in it, absorbing it, and then feeding said fish to my family– that sets off warning bells for me.

Corn syrup? Don’t even say that word out loud. It’s like Lord Voldemort. Bad things happen when it is spoken. And it’s everywhere…in everything.; bread, soda, juice, rice products, packaged dinners and every dessert. Hell, I probably got some growing in my backyard and I don’t even know it! Sugar used to be the bad guy, but he’s living pretty high and mighty these days in my household. Like whenever I find Mexican Coke and exclaim, “Oh my God! It has real sugar! No corn syrup!”

You’re going to make some rice? Seems simple enough. But it better be brown rice. White rice is empty. I can’t remember why, or how, or who took the rest of it, but it is. Might as well be feeding your family cardboard. Or worse yet–Styrofoam. You can’t even recycle Styrofoam.

Looking out for GMO’s? Good luck. That subject is more colluded and confusing then the Middle East. Do I want someone messing with my food, mixing stuff in beakers and cross pollinating for higher bug resistance and more yielding crops? No. But nothing is labeled! I would just eat at Chipotle for every meal, since they’ve vowed no GMO products in their restaurants but I can’t afford that.

You’re not one of the few still cooking with olive oil are you? That stuff be cancer-causing! Olive oil at high temperatures changes its structure like a Transformer, becoming a big, bad, cancer machine! I read the article three times to clarify how this happens, but once the chemistry formulas started, my eyes crossed and I fell asleep.

So inevitably meal time comes around. I’ve been to the store (all health food stores, of course) but walking down the aisles and looking at ingredients has reminded me of every article, or Facebook post, or benign comment that someone has to me regarding food. So exhausted, I open the freezer to find chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs.  I saw Jamie Oliver’s exposé on the process—how it is all the excess parts of the chicken, blended up together and then reshaped (like hotdogs—don’t get me started on hotdogs!). And the company whose chicken I bought didn’t even try to trick me by putting “natural” on the label…they just put “DINO CHICKEN—YOUR CHILDREN WILL LOVE!” But it’s also 6pm, and my kids are pleading with me to feed them, and I am so tired. So I lovingly microwave the prehistoric what-used-to-be-a-chicken, and cut up some carrots to ease my mommy guilt. And I tell myself that ketchup is made from a vegetable (oh wait, we’ve discovered tomatoes are actually fruit now)… and at least I bought the kind made without corn syrup.

And I promise myself that tomorrow, tomorrow I will do better.