It occurred to me yesterday, as I stood in the SuperFresh reading labels on cartons of soy milk, trying in vain to find one that didn’t have sugar in it, that I don’t eat as well as I do — by which I mean a minimum of processed and prepared foods, virtually no junk food, plenty of good wholesome home-cooked whole foods prepared in tasty ways — because I’m so damn discriminating and disciplined. Truth is, I often eat like I do because I’m picky, arrogant, and lazy.
I am forever picking up prepared foods in supermarkets, scanning the labels for hidden dairy products (to which I am allergic), and then, finding none and having no ostensible reason not to buy the items, I put them back on the shelf.
What goes through my head is not “No self-respecting foodie would eat something made in 5000 pound batches and shipped from Arkansas.”
It’s also not “Oh my God, I can’t believe I almost bought that nutritional nightmare, I can feel my arteries clanging shut at the mere thought of putting that in my mouth.”
It’s generally more along the lines of “Oh, the hell with it. You know that is never going to taste as good as you think it will, and the texture will make you grumpy because the texture is never quite right in the pre-made versions, even though they sure do charge enough for it. I mean, seven dollars! That’s highway robbery! Why should I pay someone to do poorly what I could do perfectly well for myself for less? I could make it at home for four and then at least I’d know it tasted good, because at least I can trust myself not to screw up the texture…”
And then I go home and can’t be arsed to actually make whatever it is, because as it turns out I am not actually going to overcome the bounty of inertia with which I have been so copiously blessed to make my own batch of vegan coconut-lime sugar cookies or deli-style mayonnaise-a-go-go potato salad or whatever it was that I was fondling with intent.
With the result that I am compelled to cook and eat what’s actually in my refrigerator and pantry, which, because I am that kind of person, is primarily occupied by a) bags of leaves, b) cartons of righteous all-volunteer eggs from groovy liberal-arts-degree chickens, c) many many bottles and jars of non-Western condiments, d) dried beans and whole grains, and e) garlic.
Virtue has nothing to do with it.
