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The last few days I’ve been thinking – strike that – the last few years I’ve been thinking about our attitude to food. And I’ve also been thinking about the role of religion in society.
And I’ve come to the conclusion that, in the English speaking world, food has become religion. I write “the English speaking world” because this attitude isn’t quite the same in the German speaking world – and as the Slow Food movement shows, it hasn’t got very far in the Latin countries either. So, what am I talking about? In the post-WW1 Germany of the Weimar Republic, one could find the beginnings of the socks-‘n’-sandal-wearing, lentil knitting bri gade. They were into healthy bodies making healthy minds, meditation, sport and often group-sex and National Socialism. A lot of this (apart from the latter) could be found in the later Peace Movement in both the German and English speaking worlds. Except that a lot of people ditched the sport too, because that was too hard work, man. ‘Specially when you’re wearing a flowing dress and no bra. So, all that was left was the fanaticism of healthy diets creating some kind of purity of mind. In Germany one finds (everywhere) Reformhäuser, where one can buy toothbreakingly-wholemeal everything but that’s pretty much as far as it goes. There is a rather pragmatic approach to wholefoods and healthy living, which reflects the epistemological intellectualism found in the German mind. But in the English speaking world we are still bound up in Romanticism, Wilderness-theories, Vegetarianism and the very scary, Veganism. We are also still totally hung up about religion – the Germans had Luther, we had Henry VIII – which is not quite one and the same thing. Up north and in America there was also a massive Calvinistic influence, which, to my mind, just makes everything even worse. Not only should we eat healthily, we also shouldn’t enjoy it. This probably explains the dietary poverty of much of the English speaking world. It also might explain why there is an obsession with “is this healthy?” and “naughty but nice”. Food, when we get down to basics, is purely a fuel for our bodies. If we work hard, we need lots of food. If we sit in an office all day, we don’t need lots of food. Our bodies are made up of fats (of various kinds), proteins, water, minerals, etc, etc. These body-ingredients need to be in the right balance for our bodies to function properly. Food cannot be naughty because it has no capability of behaving in any way, it also cannot be nice, horrible, mean, fattening…our attitude to it, our way of dealing with food in everyday life can be naughty, we can enjoy food and find it nice, we can also think it tastes disgusting or eat so much of it that we get fat. But this is not the food that is doing something to us, food is not a divine power, it’s our own choice whether we eat a cream-cake or not, or whether we eat salad. No one can or wants to force you to eat in any way other than the way you want to eat. Which leads me neatly on to the idea of healthy-food-fads. Omega 3, five-a-day and co…what is all this about? If you see food as a Saviour and believe that your miserable fat or thin or pretty much in the middle Self can somehow be made better by losing/gaining/maintaining weight, then you are like a flashing beacon for every quack who has a product to sell. Constipation? Take my patented magic elixir and you’ll be pooping for England! Too fat? Then eat my specially formulated starve-yourself-thin diet and the weight will drop off you and you’ll feel fantastic! Too thin? Then eat – hmmm – what have I got, who cares, eat this, give me money, don’t ask questions. In this new religion we are right back there in the Middle Ages. We are actively encouraged to remain ignorant – who really knows anything about food? Someone who has done a 10 week course in nutrition or someone who has studied nutritional sciences…I know who I would trust. We don’t read the Bible of food sciences, we don’t even read a commentary on the Bible of food sciences, we don’t even go and listen to a preacher who has read and understood at least the damn commentary – no, just as our forebears did, we trust the Pardoner selling his Papal Bull (shit). And talking about bullshit, how about tackling the ultra-religions of rabid Vegetarianism and Veganism. There was a discussion on the forums of Conker Exchange about what Vegetarians who sometimes lapse are called. The answer, we discovered, was a Flexitarian. To my mind a Flexitarian can be compared to the Christian who goes to church nearly every week, but sometimes can’t be bothered because something better is on. Someone who will go to a party on Saturday night and sleep it off on Sunday morning – guilt free. And then there are the others: the strict Vegetarian who wants to see no cruelty to animals but eats eggs, which to my mind, as a meat eater, is one of the cruellest forms of animal rearing found on the farm – when the chicks hatch all the males are killed, the chickens (even the free range ones) are kept in groups far bigger than their social competence allows for, they all get killed after about 18 months, these are disposable egg producers, not animals. It’s also (unless you own your own chickens or buy from a trustworthy farm) one of the biggest sectors in agri-business. It’s a major spreader of disease (H5N1), it keeps under-developed rural areas underdeveloped, it steals a source of protein from the poorest of people, it erodes genetic diversity and our cultural heritage. But we don’t care about all that, we love animals because we don’t eat pork, right? The Vegans don’t eat eggs, at least. But what do they eat? Grains, which again are owned and produced by agri-business. To provide enough protein for us all as Vegans we have to rely on non-organic farming methods, GMOs, irrigation and endless transport – grain production is a massive contributor to greenhouse gases. Not really a very eco-friendly approach. They also eat soya products, which also can receive the treatment I just gave to eggs and grains. This all reminds me of the very nice people who come to my door and explain that the chosen people will go to Heaven and, after a quick calculation based on their theory, I can tell them that there will no longer be room for me in Heaven, so please will they leave me alone. “Healthy” eating, Vegetarianism, Veganism and all other silly faddy ideas, are not based on fact, they are not based on reality, they are not even based on sense. Which is why they are the worst of all religions, this is Christianity with the bigotry but without the love. This is Islam as preached by Al Quaida rather than what-Mohammed-said. This is Buddhism with the weirdness but without the Mindfulness. So, what do I suggest? I suggest that people start to seek out the “preachers”, the
secondary literature and the bible of what food is itself. Starting with the ideas of Carlo Petrini, founder of Slow Food (www.slowfood.com), who wrote the Fible (the food bible) and talks more sense than all the other faddy gurus stuck together. Slow Food is a philosophy not a religion, one that’s worth taking heed of and one that might just help us to find the right way to a food-future that is GOOD, CLEAN and FAIR for everyone who takes part in the food system. Down with the food-gurus and long live the idea that food can bring pleasure, from the planting of a seed - through the cooking - to the meal, enjoyed with friends. Amen. If you'd like to discuss or comment on this article, you can do so in our forums, under "debate". If you're not already a member, email admin at ConkerExchange.net and ask! |
