Lickin' My Lips Over This One

A short history of processed food and imperialism



This is hysterical, in and of itself.

But I wonder how this figures into the history of food--and American desire, on all levels. I've read The Omnivore's Dilemma and Fast Food Nation. And I've watched Super Size Me and have not so much as licked non-organic or free-range meat since watching the movie Fast Food Nation, which unforgettably personalizes the violence of the book.

As someone who's heard the words "Oh, you have cancer" not too many years after being diagnosed with not one, but two autoimmune diseases, I am a teeny tiny bit attentive to food and health.

Honey, I can hear that keyboard flutter. I'm fine. All yellow good energy and healed. It was carcinoid cancer, found during a standard pathology test after a 'routine' emergency appendectomy, if such a nonsensical exists. I'll post more about that later this week, promise. Because oh there's a story: eight month old baby, no breast pump, nurse who forgot to call the surgeon while that appendix lay bursting, lost pathology report for six weeks thus the 'oh my, cancer surprise' at another 'routine' follow-up ---not to mention the psychological complexities of that diagnosis, however positive (100% good news and never again). Look for more on this and how the wronged Matron stormed the doors of Health Care, later.

We all have good reason to be concerned about what we put into our bodies, but I am the recipient of that classic Wake Up Call(s).

Then there's my special relationship with those jeans.

Anyway. . . Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma) has written a new book, In Defense of Food. I heard him on assert on NPR's Science Friday that 90% of what most Americans eat is not food! We subsist largely subsist on man-made chemicals. Guess This Childhood Treat:

Chicken breasts with rib meat, Water, Salt, Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), Flavors, Chicken Fat, Propylene Glycol, Water, Sunflower Oil, Artificial Flavors, Sodium Lactate, Autolyzed Yeast Extract, Chicken Broth, Polysorbate 60, Polysorbate 80, Sodium Hydroxide, Medium Chain Triglycerides, Sodium Phosphate, Salt, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean & Cottonseed Oil, Papain, Chicken Powder, & Thiamine Hydrochloride, Flavoring. Breaded with: Bleached Wheat Flour, Enriched Wheat Flour (Enriched with Niacin, Ferrous Sulfate, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Salt, Spice, Dextrose, Leavening (Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Sodium Bicarbonate) Onion Powder, Garlic Powder, Extractives of Paprika, Soybean Oil, set in Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil. Battered with: Water, Bleached Wheat Flour, Modified Corn Starch, Salt, Spices, Leavening (Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Sodium Bicarbonate), Soybean Oil, Onion Powder, Dextrin, Extractives of Paprika, Yellow 6, Red 40 Lake, Natural & Artificial Flavor (Including Butter Flavor), Lactic Acid, Not more than 2% Sodium Silico Aluminate added to prevent caking. Predusted With: Wheat Flour, Modified Corn Starch, Salt, Wheat Gluten, Spice, Extractives of Paprika, Soybean Oil, Onion Powder, Not More Than 2% Silicon Dioxide Added to Prevent Caking. Contains: Wheat.

That's a Burger King chicken nugget, friends. Num! Progress! Technology! Let's genetically engineer water and call it a day. The video's combination of supposedly naive technological ambition and entrepreneurial pitch may very well have come to absolute fruition.

Well, thank goodness we're not trying to impose our finger-lickin' fast food ways on anyone else on the planet, hmmmmmmm?

My! The Matron can't quite shake the rant these days. She is testy. Maybe it's that one million below zero wind chill. . . . .