Everywhere I look I can’t help but notice the absurdity of what Michael Pollan describes as the “American Paradox” an unhealthy people obsessed with the idea of eating healthily. In my own apartment I see this firsthand in the choices my roommates and I make. One of them J. will take the train one stop to the gym when it’s only seven blocks away. She will also eat a bag of cheetos for breakfast and then for dinner say she’s only having a can of creamed corn because she just came from the gym and doesn’t want to “blow it.” Hmmm… I feel like if I told this anecdote to someone abroad they would laugh and simply think I was telling some sort of joke, sadly it’s not. I’m guilty of this too. I carefully scrutinize the labels of the food I buy, can be seen comparing different products in the supermarket aisle and for the most part eat vegetarian at home because I’m too worried about antibiotics, hormones and all the other scary stuff that goes into raising these animals. Then, when I go out to eat at a restaurant I’m suddenly a different person; one who orders chorizo and items laden with sugar.
It makes me come to the conclusion that the further away we are from our food, the more deluded our choices become. When I’m at the supermarket I can actually see the food in my hands and make choices based on net pros and cons. Meanwhile in a restaurant, there is an additional veil between my food and I which makes it easier to forget those certain chapter in The Ethics of What We Eat or the scene from Fast Food Nation. I’m sure it would also be true that if I grew my own food and literally saw for myself the entire process, I would be “most” conscious of my food choices.
On a brighter note (this blog has gotten way too pessimistic) this past weekend I had the opportunity to venture out to Park Slope, Brooklyn with a friend. We started off our “tour” by going to Gorilla Coffee, which our professor recommended, for iced coffee. Then we walked around the neighborhood checking out the pretty brownstones, discussing urban development and working up an appetite. For dinner we went to Chiles & Chocolate, a Mexican restaurant, that had some interesting choices on the menu. I ordered vegetable quesadillas and the aforementioned chorizo although I was quite tempted by this dish that had grasshoppers as a topping. My friend ordered chicken mole which had chocolate as an ingredient which made for an interesting earthy taste. From there we went to check out some local bars and now I’m sort of wishing Sunnyside could hurry up and become a neighborhood’s neighborhood.
