Food Junk

Last week I did something I knew was wrong, but ignored my conscience. I had two children with me and an hour to fill before a group activity on Boston Common. We walked around the beautiful spring blossoms – even stopping to roll down the hills. And then, to answer their cries of hunger, I went to McDonald’s. 

It is a personal choice of mine to not go there. I was swayed initially by the cleverly edited visuals of Supersize Me… but once it stopped being a regularity in my life, I saw, tasted, smelled, and felt the poison. It’s disgusting.

But to ten-year-olds, especially one very, very picky eleven-year-old, it’s a treat.

I sat there watching them eat their Mcnuggets and burger, sipping their sugary drinks. I only got an iced coffee, reconciling my conscience with the fact it supports Paul Newman’s charity… but… obviously it wasn’t a triumphant reconciliation, because I still feel guilty.

Today I read this story online, about how insurance companies invest serious money in fast food.

Look, I’m not going to tell anyone how to eat. I spent most of my life resenting the guidelines my mother (a professional in the field) taught me about nutrition. Only to come back to it after writing a vampire novel… when I really started thinking about what we feed on… and how it affects us. Ages us. Kills us.

But it is a free country. We are free to make choices for our mortal shells, good or bad. No one can nor no one should tell us how to do that. Except… there is something incredibly icky about the food industry. Something I find even more monstrous than the bloodsucking paranormal creatures of my literary focus.

There’s all this outrage about the government taking over too much of our lives. Where is the rage about the corporations taking over our bodies? Brainwashing us as children so we believe McDonald’s is a treat. Patterning our memories with Pavlovian anticipation so we salivate over bacon and melted cheese sandwiched between two clumps of fried chicken. Weighing us down without inspiration to move away from our computers and televisions. So we get sick. And have to buy drugs. And pay… apparently the people who pay to make the crap food in the first place. Why is that somehow less frightening, less Big Brother, less reprehensible than this fear of government takeover? Because we choose to put the poison in our mouths?

 

Well… that I’ve got to agree with. I put this crap in my mouth for decades. And it hurt my body. I haven’t broken the habit completely… and I’m clearly still enough of a moron to be an enabler. I know I have to make the choice to stop. To not make it permissible. To not fork over another penny to that vile industry.

See, I don’t look at it merely as my freedom any more. I look at it as my responsibility. Yup. My personal responsibility to not be part of this problem any longer. I faltered last Tuesday. God forgive me. No. Not God. The sin here is completely corporal.