The Infantilization of Taste

There is a trend in American food that seems innocuous enough, but I find highly disturbing. It's the latest step the food industry is taking to keep American tastes infantalized so they will continue to be addicted to the fatty, sugary, salty, highly processed food commodities that is so very profitable to the industry.

These foods require little in the way of whole foods to make. They are composed of commodities which are traded by the ton in the food industry. Let's take the latest trend to put Fritos- a snacky junk food- on top of pizza- also junk food. Fritos is made of seed corn crushed, mixed with water and a few conditioning chemicals, then extruded and fried in oil (corn oil or soybean oil, most likely). And what is pizza made of? wheat, water, a little yeast, processed cheese and tomato sauce.

These are highly processed, commodified foods which cost very little for the industry to produce per unit. They can be combined in myriad ways to provide the illusion of diversity and choice. You can practically see the corn fatcats sitting down with the wheat and dairy fatcats and insisting they need a bigger piece of the pie. They want to expand into new markets: pizza and subs, for instance. What better way to ensure increased profits than take a staple of many people's childhoods, a snack like Fritos, for instance, and turn it into an ingredient that could appear not only with, but in a staple lunch and dinner food of the average consumer?

I can understand why people flock to burgers. Modern life is not easy. There's less and less time to handle the basics of living. Market pressures on business and social pressures on government are constant. Everyone lives in with a chronic low-level anxiety all the time, with intermittent periods of high anxiety. This takes a toll on our minds and bodies. We feel exhausted at lunch or when we leave for the day. The body needs refueling- it's unavoidable, right? And it is so easy to take refuge in the simple foods of childhood. It makes us feel loved by our moms; or, like we truly are masters of our time. It's fast and cheap, fitting into our busy adult lifestyles. Perhaps the most mechanical reason is the addictive substances produce an opiate-like high, leading to a temporary feeling of contentment. But this is exactly the wrong sort of food we need to be eating in times of constant stress. We need high quality fuel. The food industry is more than happy to tempt us with a constant stream of exactly the wrong fuel in the form of this comfort food because their profits are so massive. How it affects people does not enter into their thinking for a moment except for how it will empty their wallets and the fact we can't help but buy it. They realize all to well that carbs, fat and sugar are as addictive as heroin. Talk about a captive audience!

 This is a moral failure on the part of our society. We should be able to trust our food and our instincts, but we absolutely cannot. Whether you feel tempted to or not, we need to be eating whole foods, as close to literally taking it out the environment and eating it as possible. Personally I do not eat meat, but this issue transcends this fact. Whether you are a carnivore, omnivore, vegetarian or vegan, you need to eat foods as nature provided them to maximize their nutritional benefits. Our brains need sugar, but the slow-release kind that is found in fruits and vegetables. The proteins and carbs need to be complex and unprocessed. The fact of the matter is science doesn't exactly know why certain foods are beneficial- it is the synergy of many complex molecules found naturally in food working together to provide a benefit far beyond the sum of their parts. (This is why whole foods are better than supplements as well.)

Take a moment to consider what you truly like about your favorite foods and see if you can't get those buttons pushed somehow by a natural food. Instead of fries, have a potato. Instead of a burger, have the vegetables that come with a burger with a small amount of quality protein. Instead of fast food chili, have homemade veggie chili that tastes practically the same.

The funny thing you may notice is the more you try to do this, the more your meals will resemble what you grandparents ate. They grew up in an era without easy, fast junk lunches and dinners. You'd do well to simply emulate what they ate, if you are unsure of how to start. Gradually, this will become your new normal, and you will feel better than you have felt in years. Along the way, you'll encounter new flavors and textures that you love. You'll find yourself wondering why you wanted to eat like a kid to begin with.