Foodie Depression

What happens when a foodie wonders what’s for lunch and can’t think of a single thing that sounds good, even the old favorites that she thought would always provide comfort? Is this foodie depression?

A quick glance through Gourmet magazine rejuvenates the spirit a little, but when you catch yourself eating Lean Pockets for lunch, you know you’re in trouble. Nothing seems like it will satisfy in that happy way you remember food doing. You begin to feel bloated at the thought of your comfort foods, and instead of salivating at the thought of stuffed pork chops or chicken salad, you feel a little ill and an actual bland flavor begins to communicate itself across your tastebuds at the mere thought of food. So now your stomach’s growling because you realize you haven’t eaten since breakfast when you only had half a corn muffin at one of your favorite breakfast diners, where usually you’re more than happy to have an egg, cheese, mushroom, and tomato omelet. Something is definitely wrong. But what can it be?

Being surrounded by people who do not see the value in food is a huge help in creating this foodie depression. Like a painter with no friends except politicians or businessmen, surely the painter gets stale and loses confidence in the value of his art after a while. The thing you’re passionate about can easily seem silly and frivolous when you’re surrounded by those who assert themselves as more high-minded, or claim a more practical approach to daily living.

Still, like all passions, if it’s really something you’re meant to be doing, if it’s really something that enriches your life, that you love, then nobody can convince you not to pursue it. If they can, you don’t love it as much as you think. So, I pick up the Gourmet magazine again. Cut out some recipes. I’ll try the brownie recipe tonight and hope it elicits a smile in my boyfriend.

It comes out even better. He sneaks back into the kitchen and steals a spoonful of the brownies before dinner. Even though he’s not a foodie, and I get chided for spending so much time thinking and planning and reading about food, I remember why food is rewarding. Because it does make people happy, it brings them together, and it relaxes them. It does make me happy to plan, to discover new recipes, to experiment, and to make people something they’ve never had before. I just have to remember that that’s why I’m a foodie.

CNN’s 9 Forbidden Foods in the USA

Guess what, HFCS is among them!

While the CNN article (link below) is a pretty “no-duh” sort of exposition (i.e. Shark fin is endangered because of restrictions in US waters on fishermen who just cut off the fins of sharks and leave the shark to die in the ocean; but what’s more interesting, CNN, is the illegal shark fin trade going on, is the chefs who are getting their shark fins from foreign waters).

Anyway, here is the article. HFCS is #9; Trans Fats #1. I suppose what we’re really trying to ban is obesity.

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/fsb/0804/gallery.forbidden_foods.fsb/9.html

High Fructose Corn Syrup is the Devil!…so I’m told

I don’t know about you, but High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) buzzes around me like it’s some kind of national conspiracy to make me obese or diabetic. At a table with intelligent people, it’s a shake of the head and a sigh and a helpless, “I don’t know how to stop it.” It’s yet another example of how our government (FDA, I’m pointing at you!) can put an A on a bad paper and graduate the undeserving. But is it all of these things, or is my middle-class, higher-educated, liberal-tending group of friends (God love ‘em) caught up in the organic craze, in the hippie backlash of food awareness?

I like the idea of organic foods. I can’t afford them, but I like the idea of them. I am middle-class, higher-educated and liberal. So I like the idea of no trans fats and less unhealthy carbs and more whole wheats and free-range eggs and meats. So, it stands to reason that I also like the crusade against high fructose corn syrup. However, after reading a recent article in QSR magazine and perusing some of the more recent studies on HFCS, I’m starting to wonder if my organic sensibilities have, like the hippies, gone astray.

In 2004, a nutrition professor (Barry Popkin) and a professor of medicine (George Bray) wrote a paper wherein they proposed that HFCS may be responsible for the increase in obesity in Americans since the 1970s. In one of their more gripping seal-the-deal moments, they took a graph of the consumption of HFCS in the US and overlayed it with a graph of the increase in American obesity. Bam! The graphs matched up almost perfectly. Four years later, most Whole Foods-going shoppers and eaters spout off the following information with confidence, “It’s been linked to obesity, and it’s just not something that’s natural or good for you” (NYTimes). Makers of the documentary King Corn talk as if they were betrayed by their mothers when they say, “We found out that our corn was going to become not sweet corn on the cob but in fact fast food, essentially corn-fed beef for hamburgers and high fructose corn syrup soda. In the course of the year of making our film and seeing where our crop was going to go, we came to question the agricultural system that’s in place right now as it affects our food” (QSR). While having your corn go to corn-fed cows is probably a bad thing (experts say that corn-fed cows are more likely to provide tougher and ecoli-friendly meat), what’s the big deal about your corn going to HFCS? While the FDA’s official stance is that it’s not “natural”, John White (PhD, White Technical Research) and John Foreyt (Professor of Medicine, Baylor College) argue that it goes through the same processes that don’t disqualify other products, and it does not contain artificial materials, and meets all the FDA’s guidelines for a natural food ingredient. Moreover, it only accounts for 10% of the world’s sweeteners. So what’s with all the moaning and groaning?

Based on what I’ve seen in researching for this post, it appears to me that we’re just looking for a scapegoat on why we’re getting fatter. I know I’m getting fatter because the portions at restaurants are so huge, because I like cheese and pasta and bread a little too much, and it’s hard to resist Starbucks chai lattes and Cabot’s ice cream. I work out at least three times a week, but I also know I could work out harder. That’s why I’m getting fat.

The truth is, HFCS is really not that different from regular sugar. One of the reasons industries switched to HFCS and continue to use it instead of sugar is that it’s cheaper and more efficient for certain products. Instead of having to carry in bags of sugar, HFCS can be pumped from a truck in the parking lot. While sugar can make old soda taste different –yes, Coke’s different here than in Mexico, but imagine if it was different between Boston and New Orleans?—HFCS keeps a Coke a Coke no matter where you are in the US (which makes my Dad eternally happy). Moreover, it helps keep canned foods fresher, retains moisture in cereals, helps maintain that soft texture in baked goods, enhances the flavor in fruit fillings in yogurts and your favorite jelly-filled donuts, it balances the tartness of the tomato in your pasta sauce, and it’s far more stable than sugar in acidic carbonated sodas. So why are we whining about HFCS when we should be celebrating?

Okay, I wouldn’t go that far. The point is, whether it’s HFCS or regular sugar, it’s making us fat. We are still consuming calories. HFCS is no worse than sugar, but it’s also no better. That’s all current experts are saying in their attempts to calm the organic-loving masses. Even the firestarters themselves are recanting. “It was a theory meant to spur science,” Popkin said in the NY Times. It was a suggestion, a proposition, more than a statement of researched fact. Popkin still believes that with further research he may be proved right, but for now he says it’s a misconception to blame HFCS for obesity.

My suggestion? Abandon the age-old habit of scapegoats, and start taking responsibility. Americans have bad eating habits, and while I know that salad’s going to make me feel happy and refreshed, that pizza sure smells damn good.