food attitudes.

i've recently been hearing about this book and, you know, it's really making me wonder. how do most people eat?

i mean, really. what is this?

The French way of life requires shopping several times a week at small markets or well-stocked supermarkets that carry quality produce. It involves cooking with herbs and fresh foods, not processed ones, something many American women say they do not have the time or talent to do.

if you don't cook your own meals, what do you eat? tv dinners? not only do i go food shopping every week, i used to work in a grocery store. i've never seen a single cart piled high with tv dinners. sure, a few here, a few there, but no one throws 15 dinners in their cart. and don't ask me to believe everyone eats mcdonalds every night either; a lot of people just can't afford that.

one thing she's right about, though, is that people here don't eat for pleasure. being fat is the new moral yardstick. it used to be if you were poor, you had done something wrong morally. increasingly, it's fat. being fat means there's something else wrong with you. implicit in that is a demonizing of food, and especially enjoying food. when you get down to it, a lot of this country has absorbed the most dangerous of the old puritan values: that physical pleasure is somehow in and of itself evil. just look at how we handle (or completely fail to handle) sex. the same thing goes for food. to be someone who lives to eat rather than who merely eats to live is an invitation for contempt. if you enjoy food, you'll get fat. if you're fat, you're morally corrupt. and don't even get me started on how we treat alcohol. that's a subject for another post entirely.

yes, i'm on a diet now, but that's because i stopped moving. for years, i walked a couple miles a day. then i graduated, got a job and a car and started packing on the pounds. but i haven't changed how i eat. i'm not eating slimfast or weight watchers, i'm eating what i always made for myself: stir fry, homemade soups, fried chicken. ooo. i think we'll have tacos for dinner tonight.

i dunno. i cook dinner every night. i didn't think that was so weird. and who doesn't cook with herbs? under the most refined tortures (or on a public forum seemingly designed for the grossest of personal confessions) i will certainly admit to using broth from a can and tomato sauce from a jar. but i still dump herbs in there. we had lasagne for dinner last night. sauce out of a jar, cheese out of tubs. but good-quality sauce and cheese and noodles. and i played with the recipe and added in some herbs and spices. am i really so different? i know my in-laws go to costco and buy frozen lasagne with orange sauce. is that what most people eat? they think i'm funny because i'll spend the extra money to buy low-fat meats, good cheeses, olive oil, and grow my own herbs. why would i take the time to make my own hamburgers when i could buy them for $1.99/lb at costco? i guess because i know the difference between 20%fat 1/3lb unseasoned slabs from costco and the ones i make myself.

for one, mine are healthier.

i guess maybe that answers my question. not tv dinners, but frozen hamburgers and pre-seasoned turkey roasts from costco and sam's club are what people eat instead of cooking for themselves. i have to say, i feel sorry for them. to not know what good food is, and to not allow themselves to enjoy it. i guess i'm just morally corrupt that way.