I came, I saw, I ate frozen pizza

I use real milk and butter, along with vegan sausage in my Mac ‘n’ Cheese. Why vegan sausage? I don’t know. Not at all as good as the real thing. That was all I had yesterday, 1/2 for lunch, 1/2 for dinner. I don’t think I have eaten meat in days. To ease the transition back into the carnal, I am now going to have a Chicken Caesar Pizza! Weird, right? It’s like a salad, but with dough where the lettuce should be. Oh god. Let’s see, earlier today I had a garlic bagel with tomatoes, onions, and scallion cream cheese for lunch, an intelligent order, if I may. The day also featured three smoothly elided cups of coffee, and give or take as many cigarettes. Oh, and of course a pot of coffee in the AM and some strawberry Kefir. Also, I need to be drinking more water, since occasionally I get coffee related headaches in which the only cure would be more coffee. A conundrum if I’ve ever seen one.

real food

Sugar is twice as expensive in America and Canada as it is in the rest of the world. A toxic concoction of corn subsidies and sugar tariffs keep Americans ugly. High fructose corn syrup is a ubiquitous sugar substitute, and is both fattening and poisonous. Leslie Hatfield, who writes for a very interesting “real” food blog called Green Fork, wrote last year in the HuffPo on mercury levels in HFCS. (Interestingly enough, she begins her article by referencing Jeremy Piven’s alleged mercury poisoning excuse for quitting a Broadway show, though rumors suggest that Mr. Piven was actually nose deep in the Bolivian marching powder.)  Apparently, the FDA, prodded by the corn industry, has known of the mercury content in HFCS for years. Quoting her quote:  “Mercury is toxic in all its forms,” said IATP’s David Wallinga, M.D., and a co-author in both studies. “Given how much high fructose corn syrup is consumed by children, it could be a significant additional source of mercury never before considered. We are calling for immediate changes by industry and the FDA to help stop this avoidable mercury contamination of the food supply.” Further, a certain Dr. Mercola also writes of the dangers inherent in HFCS itself, which can lead to obesity, insulin resistance, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, and gout. This “sugar substitute,” aside from being significantly caloric, by its very nature, removes the fiber from the foodstuffs that it is added to, in effect removing all nutritional value from these substances. And, as anyone who has had a coke in other countries will tell you, it just doesn’t taste as good.

fatties

America drinks soda, and a lot of it. Mark Bittman over at the New York Times writes today on the irresponsible consumption of sugary soft drinks, especially amongst children. According to NYT, Americans consume “roughly 50 gallons per person per year.” I am sorry, but 50 gallons?! (For those of you not familiar with the American Imperial system, or, perhaps, for those among you who are the consumers of this massive amount of soda, this translates into one-and-a-half 2 liters of soda, bought and consumed by each American, each week.) He makes the apt comparison to the tobacco industry of old, how they fought against reform and consumer responsibility by using, according to the head of the C.D.C. Dr. Frieden, “so-called experts, claims that new products which are safer for consumers are available, and the claim that they are not marketing to children.” And as it happened to tobacco in the last generation, hopefully this will affect the next generation of pregnant women to stop drinking soda while expecting. It is not clear yet where the revenue from this tax will go, which in New York state alone is expected to be over a billion annually, but it will either be used to help budget the health care plan or to subsidize healthy foods, which, as anyone who has spent time in low income neighborhoods or the midwest, with their fast food and vending machines, will tell you, is a crucial need. “What you want,” says Kelly Brownell, director of Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, “is to reverse the fact that healthy food is too expensive and unhealthy food is too cheap, and the soda tax is a start. Unless food marketing changes, it’s hard to believe that anything else can work.”

For the Obamas, stepping into the game here has a two-pronged effect. First, this soda-tax proposal would help offset costs of the trillion dollar health care plan, and of course, if soda consumption is reduced, as is likely, this will cut down on the operating costs of the government program by producing less obese citizens. Secondly, as the strategy for achieving health reform moves from the short term to the medium term, giving Michelle the First Lady-appropriate task of campaigning against obesity in our children (the number is 1 in 3, people) keeps issues of wellness on the minds of our citizens and law makers, and allows the progress towards a healthy nation to continue on multiple fronts.

As a smoker and drinker and consumer of all kinds of nastiness, I often am cast as a hypocrite for taking a stance against soda, and I am not above drinking coke with a lover, but when you see an individual taking down an orange crush or mountain dew at 10:00 AM with a candy bar as breakfast, it makes me a little upset. Well, that diet would make my stomach upset, but when you think about the cycles created in eating habits among the lower class, we have to wonder if subsidizing health foods wouldn’t work. For one thing, junk food is cheaper, obviously, and for another, growing up with a diet high in sugar and grease and processed god-knows-what leads you to prefer those kinds of tastes and become used to maintaining that same level of caloric intake and sugarhigh, causing a person to “crave” that dr. pepper later in the day. Perhaps as the First Couple totes their ideals of health and wellness, those across the aisle and across the country can turn towards the so-called elitists and socialists and take note of the relative slimness of those in New York or on the coasts compared to, say, Texas or places where the word “pop” is used, or of the correlation between the poor and fat, and perhaps decide that, among all the goals of a progressive administration and for all that some of us may want to emulate in Europe’s social democracies, being fit and eating responsibly and living longer are not the worst things in the world.