Eating Disorder
Michael Ruhlman loses his temper: America Has A Serious Eating Disorder.
The disorder, broadly speaking, is that we use food as the occasion of guilt. We worry about food. We shouldn’t. Worry about your friends and your family and the girl who was expelled for fooling around with chemistry. Don’t worry about your food.
Specifically, our eating disorder is that some of us get stuck in a rut when we don’t need to. Salt might be good for you or bad for you, but it’s pretty clear that a varied diet is a good thing. Don’t eat only french fries, and don’t eat only lettuce. Don’t have steak and potatoes every night. Don’t live on rice and beans. Eat different food, not all of it “healthy.” You’ll last longer.
For most of history, almost no one had a choice. Orwell visited Wigan Pier in 1937, where he saw plenty of little kids who are alive and well today. But those kids couldn’t vary their diet much because nobody could. If you were prosperous, you might have meat once a week for Sunday dinner. If not, you might have meat for Christmas. Lots of people still have too few choices. But if you can choose, mix it up.
And don’t forget the pie: stress cannot exist in the presence of pie.
Meanwhile, Tony Maws loses his temper too over some kids from Culinary Institute of America who dropped into Craigie on Main during Spring break and were too busy dissecting the food to have a good time.