My first mistake may have been to read In Defense of Food.
That's not to say that the act of reading the book was unpleasant. In fact, if I could be trapped in some kind of suspended animation mid-read, endlessly being pleased and amazed at the complexity of the human body and getting excited for the fancy, full-fat local agriculture I would soon be eating, that would be ideal. Let's get that program in the works.
But it's essential for the suspended animation to never require me to actually eat, because that's where it gets difficult. At first, I gave myself a pass because although the first part of the book is a thorough argument against the Western diet, I couldn't eat anything else until I got to the end, with the suggestions for what foods I should be eating.
It turns out I am supposed to buy food from farmer's markets and then lovingly prepare it like my grandmother would have done. I thought of my mom's mother, who told me a funny story once about how she killed a chicken and made soup out of it at the age of six. (The punchline to the story was that she couldn't even reach the pot, so she hoisted herself up onto the counter and got some unpleasant burns from briefly sitting on the stove.) My first thought was, "I'm going to starve."
Since I finished the book, I have possibly been eating worse than I had been prior to learning about how bad I was already eating. Like if Adam and Eve had sampled from the tree of knowledge, realized they were naked, and somehow found a way to be more egregiously naked than before.
Some examples of my foray into negative-fig-leaf territory:
- I drank Mountain Dew.
- I watched Cocktail instead of going to the farmer's market.
- I have, on at least three occasions, taken a little portion cup and dipped it into the 10-pound bag of sugar, you know, for a little snack.
If I were portrayed in cartoon form, I would be eating from a feed bag around my neck labeled "DIABETES."
In my free moments when I haven't been chastising myself for my eating habits, I have been making some very grand plans for how I'm going to acquire all of this fresh, local produce and meat. So far, I have my eye on an industrial-sized freezer and expensive memberships in community-supported agriculture operations. One is a produce membership, and one is a meat membership. All told, it will cost a few thousand dollars. And that part — the acquisition — is easy.
In theory, these wonderful meals will spring from my hands, and I will also make my own bread. In practice, I will munch on a few snow peas while wondering how in the heck to prep all these vegetables as my big freezer slowly fills with 240 pounds' worth of whole chickens and pork chops. I have half a mind to put out an ad on Craigslist, promising to pay some individual to just turn the fresh vegetables and meat into meals, already.
But there's some more money I just don't have. For now, the best I can do is to stop driving myself crazy thinking about the great divide between the Lean Cuisine meals in my freezer and farm-fresh eggs and kale.