For many years, I have proudly defined myself as someone who doesn’t eat fast food. I hate the grease, the oddly salty-sweet smell, the strange squish of the fries, the soggy too-green lettuce. Every once in a while, when I crave meat and potatoes and my friends are all going there anyway, I’ll go to In-N-Out and buy a burger and fries.
This does not mean I am a healthy eater. My friends will happily tell you about the pounds of Skittles I used to eat almost daily, and when I gave up that, about the buckets of coffee I drink just to wake up properly. This just means that I’m unnecessarily picky about which artificial chemicals I put in my body. Call me old-fashioned, but eating something soaked in ammonia just seems like a bad idea.
When my Expository Writing class read Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, I was prepared. My brother had read the book, and I, out of a proud self-righteousness, had researched the topic to disgust my friends with details of what was in their food. However, reading the book caused some very unexpected effects.
The book was written to disturb us, to make us gag and swear off McDonald’s and its kin forever. Despite the book’s intention, I found myself suddenly craving the food I had shunned for so long. Schlosser told us about the atrocities of the meatpacking industry and I found myself picturing a large, hot slab of meat covered in barbecue sauce. Schlosser described the dehydrated and chemically modified crops that become the fries and hamburger buns and that became all I could think of.
To make matters worse, I watched Super Size Me a few weeks before I read the book, and my class read article after article about healthy eating alongside our main attraction. Fast food filled my mind. I thought of it constantly. Every meal, every snack, every cup of water was compared to a juicy burger and its famous side of fries. If someone asked me what I wanted for lunch or dinner, I instantly replied “In-N-Out,” prompting them to roll their eyes at me and ask what happened to my previously rock-solid conviction that fast food was the devil’s food. I hadn’t changed my beliefs; if anything they’d been reaffirmed by my readings. I just had nothing else on my mind.
I cook. I bake. I make almost all of my own food. I almost never go to restaurants. My head is usually filled with recipes for cookies and cakes and ideas of new ways to combine herbs in my next dish. But suddenly it was filled with images of a burger and fries, sometimes accompanied by a milkshake and always delicious.
This was not my teachers’ intent. They meant to scare me into becoming a healthier eater. But the one girl who was already leery was suddenly craving the fakeness of McDonald’s more than she’d ever craved anything before. So what do we do? Do we eat the food our tongue demands or the stuff our body needs? Do we obey our own ignorant desires or the knowledgeable advice of those better educated than ourselves? Do we eat unhealthily or healthily? And what does it say about us and our society if, despite knowing the truth of our favorite meal, we still insist on eating it?
I don’t know about you, but I’m now going to buy myself a burger with a side of chicken nuggets, fries and a large milkshake. Then I will flop onto my couch and recede back to my former, healthier self and ignore the siren call of the Golden Arches for as long as my self-destructive tongue will allow.