Food Is the New Sex? & Other Minor Ramblings

Reading as widely as we do for academic and research purposes, occasionally we come across some really interesting things unrelated to anything but our hobbies. The latest we found is an article from the Hoover Institution which discusses the phenomenon of food as the new sex.

The rationale is that people are as nosy and busybodyish about their neighbors’ food choices as 1950’s America was about their neighbors’ sexual choices. Since we weren’t even yet the germ of a glimmer in our mamas’ eyes in 1950, that attitude is completely foreign and thoroughly creepy to us — who’s going to get involved in anyone else’s sexual choices? — but then, we thought about it a little more, and wondered.

We’re low-level foodies, and when we wanted to experiment with veganism, we mentioned it to other foodie friends who are a little more high maintenance — and received a lot of feedback from people, positively and negatively. You’d think what we put into our mouths would be our business, but the way some people reacted, you’d have thought they were dairy farmers and we were canceling a major account with them. We all, to a certain extent, proselytize about our food choices — oh, you’ve got to try Cowgirl Creamery feta! or, You should really go to Hector’s stand at the Santa Rosa Farmer’s Market — but since the advent of locavore-ism and the spread of ideas about provenance and terroir, of all things, the proselytizing has taken on some didactic tones. “Don’t you know the mercury level of that tuna? How can you justify having plums at this time of year? Do you know the food miles it takes to fly that fruit from Peru?”

I don’t think the locavore idea is wrong, nor do I think mindfulness about food miles nor seasonal eating is something completely ridiculous. There are schools of thought about it — there’s a good argument that growing everything on your own and not trucking in warm weather fruits from, say, a tropical region, is less resource-intensive than growing them in a local garden or personal greenhouse, and there’s an idea that shifting one’s dietary choices a couple of days a week is better for the environment and the pocket book — all viable options, and all very, very interesting to discuss.

Still I don’t see the connection to sex — sorry. I would be thoroughly squicked out to know a THING about you and your sex life — just don’twannaknow. But you know, this angst and argument does sound to me like something as familiar as my middle name… religion.

Food as the new religion. This would amuse a whole bunch of my high-level foodie friends acquaintances who consider themselves strictly agnostic, but their shrill superiority, their fewer-food-miles-than-thou smugness, and their, shall we say, righteous zeal in seeking out and preaching to — and condemning — those of us who they feel aren’t doing right reminds me of what some people feel religion is all about.

It’s an interesting article, anyway, and I share it only because it caught my attention as another aspect of the crazy world in which we live. I already know myself to be pretty mellow about what other people do with their lives, but this reminds me to share only the joy of a new food or idea, and not the snippy, angsty, “don’t you know you should”-ness of any new idea or concept I come across. This is also a good reminder that a.) ideas and points of view change, for better or for worse, and b.) it’s okay not to be rigid in pursuing the best way to eat or live. I’ll continue to listen and read and weigh what information I get, make the best choice for the moment for myself, and let the rest fall away.

*gasp!* Why, yes, you do see a teensy bit of knitting taking place! So far, the only things I can contemplate doing are small bags with woven bottoms, but that’s progress! The creative spirit is not thoroughly dead. Huzzah!

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.