What We Eat

I've thought a few times about creating a category about food. There's no good reason for it, nor much in the way of effects, but food is on my mind a lot. I guess it's just something that fascinates me.

I thought about it again today because I saw that Kurt Vonnegut's new book is in the top ten. When I think of Kurt Vonnegut, I think of my first exposure to him, and that was about the same time I heard the saying "You are what you eat."

When I first heard that I thought it was "heavy, man" and mused on it over chips and cheeseburgers. I had this picture of little tiny parts of food assembling themselves, building a big, strong Russell out of the tiny infant I was at birth, and considered the saying not only profound, but very, very true.

Trouble is, later on I learned I'm not composed of French toast, pork chops, and brocolli but, instead, chemical chains that make up amino acids, proteins, and other terms whose definitions I've forgotten.

What I eat goes into some magical black box and what my body can use, it does. What it doesn't, it looks over, shrugs at, and tosses aside, much as I do feminine hygiene products, prosthetic devices, or pet rocks. Nothing wrong with them, just not for me.

Some will say that these things will kill you, or weaken you in some way, but there's much quicker ways to do that. Also, considering the number of variables involved as well as the problems with experimenting on humans, I can never quite trust those studies as well as I can ones that reward me with quicker results. Also, there's too much politics and money for me to be sure exactly what the results are.

A "twenty percent increase" sounds a lot more dramatic than knowing that out of 100,00 people, six had some effect instead of five.

So, my main consideration for eating is finding something that tastes good, then eating it. I try to avoid oleander soup as much as possible, but each day I'm presented with new fads, new results, and new hype. I avoid those, too.