Food For Thought – Why Aren’t We Thinking More About What We Eat?
While watching TV a few nights ago, a pensive ball of wax got rolling regarding a subject that I’ll admit is not often on the forefront of my mind. One of key contributers to kick-starting this thought process was the semi-regular bombardment of commercials for these weight-reduction programs geared primarily toward the female set of the population. Now this isn’t about the ads themselves; instead, this has to do with our collective perception or relationship to a key factor for living – food. More specifically, it has to do with our lack of respect or appreciation for this most vital survival need.
Obviously, one of the great benefits of living in the “developed world” is the easy access to a plethora of foodstuffs. Indeed, the last couple of years has seen vast improvements on this front, both with an increased diversity through the inclusion of more ‘ethnic’-styled food offerings as well as increased governmental regulations on the quality of the food content and the requirement for more accurate product descriptions. And yet, despite all these benefits, we still seem to harbour this uncertain relationship with food, at many times more a love/hate relationship than one where we respect and value its necessity and contribution to our overall existence. Let’s get into the, uh, meat of this topic, shall we?
First off, let’s be honest about the fact that all of us at one point or another has done that dance of worrying about how much fat, calories, salt, cholesterol, yadda yadda yadda we’re sticking in our mouths. I know I’ve had moments where I was watching the fat consumption to prevent breaking ground on the foundation for the middle-age male built-in stomach pillow (more commonly referred to as a pot belly). Though to be truthful, this was more because I wanted to stay fit and healthy for my wife and kids than any misguided notions that I could sport a six-pack any time soon (with grey hairs starting to make a recurring guest appearance in my coif, I figure I can cut myself some slack on that front). In any case, the point here is that we’ve all had moments where we became mindful of what we were eating because we embraced this societal notion of casting food as the culprit behind our unflattering physical shape. Not that there’s anything wrong with that since there is a clear correlation between poor eating habits and increased health issues. Rather, the problem is that these times where we’re trying to improve our health or simply lose weight for physical aesthetics are the only times where we pay attention of any sort to the process of food consumption. In many ways, food in our society is treated like a neglected child that we only pay attention to when it disrupts our other everyday matters instead of making it a priority to ensure we foster a healthy relationship with it.
And yet, let’s compare this to the stories we hear about these people who live to be 100 years old or older. Often what comes up in these news reports is what do these people eat (their physical or lifestyle regimen is not as noteworthy, apparently) and it’s usually rather surprising as we find out that they’ve been dining on heavy salt intakes, foods with loads of saturated fats (geez, someone better tell these people they’re going to kill themselves. Oh, wait . . .) Now from a pragmatic point of view, this doesn’t mean we should start stirring our vegetable soup with a stick of butter since one does have to take into account the lifestyle elements of the person in question. But as I said before, who really cares to read that these people used to till their fields without an ox for 40 years when we can marvel at how much salt they ingest.
Sure, we’ve made demands on the companies that produce our foodstuffs to improve the quality of their products by reducing salt and fat content. But notice how many of these products are ones meant for fast consumption. In other words, we want a means to eat that won’t cause us health issues because we’d rather cut into the time we afford ourselves to eat as opposed to cutting back on time in front of the tube or surfing the net. Think about that – we’re basically saying that one of the key factors to our very survival, the consumption of food, is not as important to us as getting our entertainment fix. The same issue applies at the workplace – I’m sure many of us have opted to pack or eat something for lunch that we could quickly consume so we could get back to work or choosing to eat at our desk so we can catch up on emails and such during our lunch break. And let’s not forget how many times we read articles or health advisories reminding people of the importance of eating a proper breakfast each morning. I bet the frequency of these reports is proportional to the increase in offerings of new brands of breakfast shakes or power drinks, you know ‘for people on the go’.
I suspect there are two reasons for this imbalance in our relationship with food. The first is the ubiquitousness of food in our environment. While grocery chains have never really had a monopoly on the offering of foodstuffs, these days you can’t go anywhere without someone offering a variety of food products – whether it’s the coffee shops now selling a more diverse selection of lunch and/or quick meal items, or drug stores carrying breads and a select number of frozen dinner entrées. And of course, how can we forget the presence of those street vendors where you can not only get hot dogs and pretzels, but gyros and pita wraps. No matter where you go, there’s always an opportunity to acquire food for you to eat on your way to wherever it is you’re going. Of course, the whole reason for these offerings is the convenience it provides us, that thanks to being able to buy a gyro off the street, you can eat your lunch while walking to your next meeting a few blocks down. And hey, throw in some power walking and you can shave off some of those undesired pounds that gyro might add to those hips.
This leads to the second reason why I think we have this unhealthy relationship with food and that is time. Time more than anything these days has become a precious commodity. I’m sure we can all relate to the notion of society moving faster and faster with each passing year. And with the rise in social networking on the Internet and its instantaneous nature of communication, I suspect the impression of life moving faster will no doubt increase. Sadly, in our quest to attempt to juggle all the various tasks we need to accomplish in any given day, we often sacrifice how much time we afford to eating, a big reason for the increasing presence of food in our environment. With companies realizing our continual shrinking of available time to eat, they are banking on our purchasing their products while en route to our more ‘important’ tasks. Remember, let’s put this into a pragmatic context – of all the things we do every day, eating is without question the most vital for our survival and yet, it’s the one that we all willingly sacrifice for the sake of other tasks or responsibilities.
The irony in all this is how it’s common to read that people say that their quality of life is very important and something that they constantly want to improve. And yet, a fundamental question we must ask ourselves is how can we improve that quality of life if we continue to neglect a key factor for basic survival. As much as people like to say they can’t live without their cell phone, online social media site, what have you, the truth is that none of us can survive without food. Perhaps it’s time that we remember that basic truth and show a greater appreciation for how lucky we are to have such an abundant access to food.
While watching one of these cooking shows on TV, the chef on the program caught my attention with his remarks about being respectful toward our food; indeed, one could easily see the sheer joy and pleasure he had in creating a new food dish from raw ingredients that are within easy reach for all of us. For him, food was clearly a wondrous thing, something to be savoured and appreciated, if not valued for its part in the perpetuation of life.
Some interesting food for thought, wouldn’t you say?
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You are absolutely right! In a post at Foodista.com, they gave a review on a book called The School of Essential Ingredients. One of the lines that caught my eye was when the character in the book said, “every meal you eat, you eat time – the weeks it takes to ripen a tomato, the years it takes to grow a fig tree. And every meal you cook is time out of your day…” It really makes you think twice about wolfing down the food on the table.