perfidy

You know what really frosts my muffins? The use of the vocabulary of [ed: moral] transgression in reference to food, especially conjugations of "to indulge." Food is just food, and like most other things its consumption is value-neutral even as its advertising pretends otherwise.

For example, chocoholic.com urges us to "indulge that chocolate passion." Not only do they resort to right/wrong comparisons (where being wrong feels oh, so good!!), but the whole "-holic" thing is just a silly cliche that trivializes addiction while allowing people with poor willpower to claim that they have no self-control when it comes to chocolate.

Or check out Guiltless Gourmet. I enjoy their snacks very much, but I don't see what is so "Sinfully Delicious" about them. As an agnostic who believes in living ethically in the absence of an absolute moral compass, I don't even have a clear idea of what "sinfully delicious" might be. Will Jesus weep if I eat the cookie? Will orphans suffer? Will my immortal soul step closer to perishing in the withering fires of Hell with every bite of salsa (naturally low-fat!)? I haven't heard this much talk about denying the pleasures of the flesh since Jonathan Winthrop. Does Weight Watchers send its members a hair shirt and a scourge for the days when they eat a second helping of lasagna?

"Indulge in our new low-fat yogurt." "Go ahead... be bad." "Guiltless Gourmet." "Try our sinfully decadent low-fat chocolate cake." What does all this mean, anyway? What's a guilty gourmet? And what is so decadent and sinful about cake? Will your pasty-textured, chemically-flavored, wooden, cake-shaped food item be served to you on the backs of two human sex slaves buggering each other with the corpses of endangered birds flown by FedEx from a remote Tropical cloud forest? Is that sinfully decadent, or am I missing the point entirely?

Julia Child always said that she'd rather have a tiny slice of something real than a giant slice of a pretender, and I am 100% with her. Life's too short to compromise-- like Warren Zevon said: "enjoy every sandwich." If actually enjoying your food is important to you (like it is to me!), why putz around with eating half a tray of ostensibly "guiltless" and demonstrably average nonfat brownies (total Kcal intake: 1200)-- it's ok, they're low-fat!-- when you can have one goddamn great brownie (total Kcal intake: more like 200) and then go for a walk?

And what the hell is it with every vegetable in the supermarket being labelled "Low fat!" "Zero Cholesterol." I know it's fat-free... it's a zucchini.

End transmission.