April 6, 2025
Some of you may have noticed that there’s a lot of crap out there. By “out there” I’m referring to everywhere we look in the mainstream-scape, and by “crap” I mean things that are stress-inducing, mass-produced, cheap, unhealthy, and seemingly unavoidable. Still not getting the picture?
Okay, how about fast food as an example? It’s stress-inducing (the heart), mass-produced (factory farms), it’s cheap (unless you’re there four times a day), and there is no disputing that it is unhealthy (see: the heart and also the gut). And while it should be easier to avoid than a kick in the head…
How ‘Happy’ is Your Meal?
The problem is that our food systems have convinced us that the reason we should continue eating fast food is because it tastes good, the salt and grease that is, and it’s affordable. I would argue that it tastes like the greasy slop that it is and that “affordable” is just another fancy word for cheap. Yet, we’ve watched these double and triple lanes for drive-thru orders appear out of thin air so that more and more people can stuff their faces on the go. Sure the food is fast, but it will be more than enough to slow our pudgy, aging bodies down, post-consumption.
In the little mountain town we lived in for years, its downtown shopping district was located at the intersection of two major highways, making it remarkably unsafe for any pedestrian to navigate crosswalks and a nightmare for parents with small children. After attending a few town hall meetings it became clear to me that, for many complex and a few not so complex reasons (mainly to do with wealth and power), this poor little town will never see a byway or ramp or any type of traffic detour constructed around their town’s center.
But I’d be willing to bet by the year 2035 every McDonald’s in America will provide its customers with the luxury of ascension: “That’ll be $13.52, please pull up onto Level3 and proceed through Lane F, hun”. What that “F” stands for is whatever we F#*k we want it to, as we gently apply the accelerator to power us up the onramp to yet another synthesized bliss point.
A lot of times we try to avoid harmful things out of principle, because exercising that choice and taking a stance against this crap makes us feel proud of ourselves. Avoidance in our culture, however, is not absolute. Instead, we’re all “trying to cut down on” this or that, which is just another way of saying that I’m going to continue doing this, or that, and just not talk about it to anyone. After all, it’s tacky to celebrate eating this junk, but it tastes so “good” and at the end of the day, it’s just so damn easy.
You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby
We scoff at the footage of a woman smoking a cigarette through the hole in her throat. Yes that is sad, but could you imagine sitting in your recliner at home, watching her on the TV while you inhale a pack of Marlboro Reds and saying “Ugh, she’s just pathetic.”
Now, could you imagine your reaction to a large individual in front of you in line at The Burger Shack, unable to walk and hooked up to oxygen tanks and catheters and other tubes, fresh off his latest open heart surgery, wheeling himself up to the counter to place his order of doom? Up until a few years ago, we didn’t have to.
Today, we need not imagine, because he’s next to us in a Minivan and nobody has to struggle to ambulate themselves in and out of these so-called restaurants anymore, where those waiting in the new-aged motorized line can choose to remain none the wiser. Plus, our eyes are on the menu, as if we’re actually seeing its hypnotic glow for the first time.
This would be an appropriate time to remind ourselves that we have just as much power to avoid these gut-busting grease factories as we do picking up a pack of smokes from the gas station and smoking them. And, truth be told, our power to avoid fast food is just as profound as the strength of will it takes us to abstain from purchasing crystal meth from some random guy behind that gas station, he just doesn’t have a budget for billboards that help coax us into the perpetual sale.
It’s only cheap when it’s your first time paying for it. Same goes for the meth. The difference is simply that the shitty food is not only socially acceptable, everyone is doing it. But when we feign nourishment by whooshing our kids into the drive-thru real quick to control their energy or to shut them up, we’re providing them with the first of many “free hits” before sending them off to a lifetime of making their own personal choices, which happens to include meals, both happy and sad.
Pickling Your Battles
When we were on the road a few years ago, I met a man named Bill who was about 150 lbs. overweight and claimed that he’d eat just about anything in front of him. I assumed vegetables were the exception, however, he was “anti-condiment”: no ketchup, mayo, BBQ sauce, dijon mustard, no pickled relish, no secret sauces and “definitely none of that Asian shit!”, he won’t touch it. It sort of became his culinary credo, I guess. To me it basically seemed like snorting the meth instead of smoking it. So why, then, doesn’t he include red meat, bleached white bread, saturated fats or racism into his personal mix of no-no’s?
It’s simply because that’s the easiest, most convenient thing Bill can stand for and food, unlike blatant racism unfortunately, is something that everybody can gather around. “I’ll take the pulled pork platter, hold the sauce”, works much more smoothly than, “I’ll take the pulled pork platter, but hold the pork and the bread and the fries.”
Okay, so the order is: “one white plate with nothing on it, got it. And do you still want the cup of Sweet n’ Smoky sauce that comes with that?”. Nah, I’m good. In this scenario, there’s not much you can do if you find yourself in a restaurant called The Slab. I was there for the Okra Winfrey Salad and God, do I wish that was a real thing. I think we got some soggy fries and a head of cabbage, to-go.
Being picky is far from being healthy and it’s important to establish the difference. My family and I eat strictly plant-based and steer away from processed foods, but when I’m around extended family during gatherings it’s, “Oh, your kids are picky little eaters because you’ve always been a picky eater, even when you were little like that.” It is impossible to explain to people why you eat clean, while they’re devouring a tray of bacon and guzzling down a Coke, without offending them. Instead, we all retreat to our thoughts, often subscribing to the old adage: “if we can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”
I’m not much of a “joiner”, particularly in this sense, and in the last decade or so, I’ve become aware of what makes me feel good and what doesn’t; and I’m comfortable existing within the eye of the hurricane, so to speak. This is not exclusive to food, although that one seems to be a hot button issue for most, probably because it involves the biological necessity of nourishment, as well as the complexities of our neurological systems. What strikes me, though, is the level of apathy and delusion with which we seem to be operating when it comes to how we collectively treat these systems of ours.
“It was cheap”, “I can’t help it”, “I was pressed for time”, “eating that thing one time is not going to kill me” (no, but you’ve eaten it several hundred times in your life); or worse, “you only live once!” YOLO indeed, but oh man, what a cop out. We tell ourselves whatever we need to hear in straining to justify unhealthy behaviors that render immediate gratification, with a hyper-delayed set of consequences awaiting. Using this approach allows us to enjoy whatever we want whenever we want it, as long as it suits this lifestyle and logic of ours
But in this process we’ve managed to take the beautiful phrase of live in the moment and twisted it into the moment consisting of whatever low hanging fruit roll-ups are within our grasp. “Um, strawberry is the best flavor, so I only eat that one now.” Choosing battles over tiny little matters and doing crappy stuff just because you can is no bueno and only over time does the struggle become mighty.
Fix ‘This’
We often make the easiest choices that are available to act on and we firmly lean into the idea of free will, even to our detriment. Hedonism comes easy when justified by traditional concepts of hard work, when we’ve earned the right to pursue and consume whatever tickles our fancy. But even the laziest of citizens will grasp at any opportunity to stake their claim: “I was born in this country”, which I guess means that you can hate condiments and Asian people because you’re just…here. Well then, apologies for not having thrown you a parade sooner.
We’re collectively very bad at analyzing the cost of stuff we bring in, versus the stuff we avoid. Based on “studies” conducted, but mainly as a result of targeted internet ads, there are actually people who believe that french fries are healthier for us than avocados. This just means that people can feel better about the fact that they don’t like salad, even though the system is literally banking on the illnesses caused by the high cholesterol diet they push down our throats.
I even spoke with a man who owned a local fruit orchard in Colorado who was wondering if this “information” about fresh fruit and vegetables being harmful to us would have a negative impact on his successful farming and ‘you-pick’ businesses. It saddens me to think of a time in the future when his beautiful 85-acre farm filled with peach and apple trees and rows upon rows of fresh produce may be demolished to make way for a string of jumbo-Mc-Cancer inducing restaurants.
Do we burn them down like a pack of Marlboros? No. We can simply avoid them without avoiding the fact that they are directly contributing to increased heart disease and obesity, as well as a life-expectancy number that just keeps dropping.
Science and medical technology can only “fix” us for so long and up to a certain point, about the age of 77. Perhaps if we can manage to avoid a lot of the crap out there we can, in turn, avoid the doctors who may then focus on healing people without self-inflicted diseases. If we look at it this way, then “preventative” might be a more appropriate and actionable term than “avoidance”.
At least fast food joints started building playgrounds in the 90’s, where the children could burn a few off during their little lunch date. In present times though, Trixie is firmly buckled into a car in Lane C of Level 2, staring into a blue light that has nearly zapped her brain, when the warm box of chicken nuggets suddenly lands in her lap.
She sighs as the car dips down the offramp of Level 2, while popping open her nugs. She unintentionally accesses her 46-year old memory bank of some nostalgic thought that: “didn’t they used to have playgrounds in these places?” Oh no, “WTF, I said NO sweet n’ sour sauce, that sonaofa– Hey mister! I said I don’t eat this shit on my nuggets, this ain’t P.F. Chang’s!” Trixies’s pissed, so probably best to avoid the traffic in Lane C. Level 2.
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