Excuse My Grandiloquence
I’ve been called elitist in the past simply because of how selective I am about the food I eat. Soda? No, thanks. Processed sugar? I try to avoid it. Natural ingredients? Yes, please.
There is a substantially increasing demand for a higher quality of food in America. It’s not a question of how or why this movement came about, that is pretty simple. It was merely a response to the consistent demise of quality in mass-produced food. Of course, a mass production of food is not a bad thing since it allows millions to be fed more efficiently. However, this “efficiency” has become something more than just more farms, more grains; more cattle, more meat; more factories, faster production; more stores, more availability. Efficiency of food production is no longer a question of how many people can be fed by the means of a single collective effort but is now a question of how much a single grain or ounce of meat can be stretched. There may seem to be little difference between these two views but this evolution has a significant difference in the effects on the people that are being fed.
Corn, it has become quite evident, is the epitome of this new form of food production. It is arguably the most mass produced food to date and very little of it is actually going to end up remaining corn. It is used in countless ways in almost every food product, and even many non-food products, available in the common supermarket. However, there is little concern as to how this affects the nutritional value of food (the practice, not the corn). To use as little actual food and as much cheap filler as possible while still keeping the meal edible has serious consequences.
So, yes. I am part of this movement to reject overly-stretched food - both as a political action that protests what mass-produced food has become and as a personal concern for my body and health. I do not think that this makes me elitist. I just like the idea of knowing exactly what it is I eat, it makes the food taste that much better.
September 28th, 2008 at 11:11 am
My problem with your elitist attitude towards “natural food” is that you are very quick to believe everything you are told. Just because food is labeled as being “natural” or “organic” does not mean that it is so.
All I ask is that you put more time and effort into forming your opinions. Just because one person (be it a doctor, scientist, nutritionist, whatever) says something and quotes others as saying it, too, does not mean that you should take his/her word for it. Look it up yourself. Look at the statistics. Come to your own conclusion based on the facts, not on hearsay.