Food: A Love Story (11 page)

There are people who eat only organic food, and then there are people who don’t have tons of money to waste. You can pretty much find anything made organically these days, including healthy versions of unhealthy food. French fries have been replaced by sweet potato fries, which are the Gardenburger of fries and taste exactly like something terrible. We all know hot dogs are bad for us, so that’s why there is the tofu dog. I’m pretty sure the guy who invented the tofu dog never actually ate a real hot dog. If he had, he never would have invented the tofu dog. Or maybe he tasted a real hot dog
after
he invented the tofu dog and was then filled with remorse. The tofu dog became his Frankenstein’s monster. “Why? Why did I create the tofu dog? We must stop the tofu dog!”

There are even organic candies, cookies, and chips that fall into another category known as “Whole Junk Food.” These foods fit into my rationalization pattern very nicely: “These potato chips are cooked with avocado oil, so I can eat ten bags. It’s good for me.” Usually the only discernible difference between a regular potato chip and a “healthy chip” is the difficulty in opening the bag. Supposedly there are good fats and bad fats. I like to think of myself as a good fat. It helps my self-esteem when I look in the mirror.

Jeannie loves buying vegetables at the farmers’ market. Can we just settle down with the farmers’ market enthusiasm?
Instead of going to a grocery store and getting everything I need, I can stand outside and buy some dirty vegetables on the street from absolute strangers who supposedly live on a farm but are probably serial killers. How do we know that some of the people selling stuff at the farmers’ market didn’t just buy that stuff at the grocery store? Some con artist probably came up with the idea.

CON ARTIST:
Psst! C’mere, kid. This is what we’re gonna do, see? We’re gonna go in that grocery store and buy a bunch of unwashed vegetables. Then we’re gonna sell them on the street for ten times the price.

KID:
That will never work!

CON ARTIST:
Just tell them they’re from the
farm
, so they taste better, see?

KID:
You’re a genius, Mac. A genius! We’re gonna get RICH!

It’s hard to eat healthy. It’s too expensive:
Should I have this salad for twelve bucks or these five hamburgers for a dime?
I resent when I go out to dinner and they try to sell me the healthy food for the same price as the good food. What a rip-off. Even more infuriating is the way the waiter tries to present the healthy choice on the menu as if it tastes as good as real food. “Tonight were having a
delicious
entrée of steamed spinach and tofu over a bed of vitamins.” Great. And for dessert why don’t we get our teeth cleaned?

I eat kind of healthy compared to some of the Eskimos up in Alaska. They’re eating blubber up there. Compared to them, I’m practically dieting by eating a Cinnabon. Whale blubber? Isn’t that like eating a fat guy? Actually, it would be healthier to eat a fat guy. I don’t want to appear to insult Eskimos and
their culture, even though I’m starting to think they don’t even make those Eskimo Pies. I realize the weather is not great in Alaska, but consuming something called
blubber
is a little insane. They are actually eating something that is the direct result of eating unhealthy. Isn’t blubber like the fattest part of fat? If fat made a noise, it would be
blub-ber
. You’d think at some point one of the Eskimos would stand up at a meal and say, “Hey, I love blubber. Who doesn’t like blubber? But I was thinking we could mix in some salads or, maybe, less blubber?” Who knows, maybe the blubber eaters think we eat weird stuff:
Those poor bastards down there don’t even eat blubber.
If you are eating blubber, what do you consider bad for you? I’m pretty sure drinking liquefied lard might be a healthier choice. On the other hand, maybe we got lucky because of the blubber. It’s possibly the reason why Alaska became part of the United States. Maybe the Canadian explorers made it up to Alaska and saw the Eskimos eating blubber and thought,
Oh, the Americans already got here.

I look forward to the day we can walk into health food stores and see organic whale blubber for sale. “Oh look, it’s
whole
whale blubber. That’s really good for you, right?”

NOBODY REALLY LIKES FRUIT

Recently I saw an apple and for a moment I didn’t recognize it. Just for a second I was like,
What is that, a paperweight? Oh that’s an apple! It’s so weird to not see it in a pie.
I’m not proud of this, but let’s be honest. Nobody really wants fruit. We only act like we do. A false desire for fruit is woven into the fabric of our culture. We are told that Adam and Eve were kicked out of paradise for eating an apple. An apple? Would an apple ever really tempt you? I would’ve looked at the serpent, “An apple? Uh, cover it in caramel and come back to me. You got any cake back there?”

Take this apple. Nobody wants it.

Sure, people will eat it if there’s nothing else around, but, given the other options, fruit just isn’t that great. Even when people seem excited to see fruit, they are really just relieved it’s not vegetables. Fruit involves too much work. You have to wash it. You have to remove that sticker al-Qaeda put on there. There’s work with fruit. Think about the orange. Has peeling an orange ever really been worth it? I always think,
There’s not even chocolate in this thing.
Yet people still imagine they like fruit. Some weirdos even convinced everyone that the gathering of a fruit is a fun activity. Once a friend excitedly asked me, “Why don’t we go apple picking?” Because I’d rather die. You have to pay to pick apples? “Okay, how much do I owe you to work for you for free? Don’t rip me off. I’m no dummy.” Once in my pre-Jeannie life I dated a woman who made me go blueberry picking. One August she said to me, “I think I’d like to go blueberry picking. Maybe we should go blueberry picking?” I remember thinking,
No. No way. They can’t even get migrant workers to do that.
Yet like ten seconds later there I was in upstate New York, picking blueberries. I remember thinking,
What happened? What am I doing here?
The whole experience was much worse than it sounds. Picking blueberries is not like picking pumpkins. It’s not like, “Hey, I got one. Let’s get the hell out of here.” With blueberries you are never done. Even after three hours you tell yourself things like
Uh, I got four. We could make a muffin. There’s got to be a machine to do this!
It’s no surprise that I broke up with that woman after that fun date. Irreconcilable differences.

This insane fruit-acquiring behavior is because we think we like fruit. Like it’s some prize rewarding us for our labor. Upon further analysis, this is most certainly not the case. We don’t actually like fruit. Why did the fruit cocktail disappear? Simple. It was horrible. When you think about it, has a strawberry ever lived up to expectations? I’m convinced strawberries
never tasted good but just had fantastic public relations. “Dip it in chocolate and no one will even notice that it’s fruit!” If honeydew melons disappeared from the planet, would anyone even notice? We would just continue to eat prosciutto like God intended us to.

Nobody really
wants
fruit. This is why there are so many paintings in museums of just bowls of fruit. You could start painting a bowl of fruit, leave for a couple of hours or even days, and when you came back, no one would have touched the bowl of fruit. On the other hand, if you’re painting a doughnut, you better finish it on the first sitting. You can’t even take a bathroom break. Upon returning, you might ask, “Hey, what happened to my doughnut?!” Your friend with a full mouth will exclaim, “I don’t know. Some fat guy ran in here. Well, I’m going to go get some milk and take a nap.” This also explains why there is no doughnut art. When was the last time you saw a painting of a doughnut? The subject always gets eaten. Sad, really. I think anyone would love a painting of a doughnut. Dunkin’ Donuts just has two
D
’s in their logo and no picture of a doughnut. Why? It’s pretty clear to me that someone ate it before they had a chance to capture the image. Do I have to explain everything?

Edible Arrangements

At some point during the turn of the last century it became acceptable for people to send cut fruit arranged like flowers. I’d like this to stop. I understand you might find nothing wrong with someone sending you a beautiful arrangement of fruit on a stick that you eventually throw out. I realize that instead of sending flowers to say congratulations or sorry for your loss, people want to send these expensive fruit arrangements, but frankly I find it unsanitary. Cut-fruit always seems like it’s on the verge of
going bad:
Our deepest sympathy … for your impending diarrhea.
I always imagine the person arranging the cut-fruit display in a robe watching
The View
and occasionally sneezing. And honestly, why do “edible arrangements” have to be fruit? Can’t you just send me a bouquet of meatballs?

EVEN FEWER PEOPLE LIKE VEGETABLES

If nobody wants fruit, even fewer people want vegetables. This is because, overall, vegetables taste horrible. Don’t believe me? Why, then, are we surprised when vegetables taste good? “Oh my God, this beet is delicious.” We are surprised because the expectation is that vegetables will taste like, well, vegetables. People eat vegetables, but nobody WANTS to eat vegetables. Think back to the last time you ate a vegetable. Did you WANT to eat the vegetable? Be honest. Maybe it was part of a healthy choice you made: “I’ll eat some carrots.” Congrats on that healthy choice, but don’t confuse a healthy choice with a desire to eat a vegetable. I mean, I don’t want to be fat, but I want vegetables less. Of course, I’m forced to eat vegetables when there are children present.

Admiring the pretty colors before going to buy ice cream.

Parents dishonestly announce how good vegetables are in front of young children, hoping that because of the youngsters’ absence of life experience and sheer stupidity, they will be tricked into liking them. The lie that “vegetables are good” usually expires around the same time as the belief in Santa and the notion that adults actually know what they are doing.