Candy Me Sweet
this one’s for my B. :)
No one else I know has such a sweet tooth as he, other than myself as a teenager when I lived off of sugar, fat, and processed microwavable junk too. Ironically, he’s a dentist, and his ultimate indulgence is sugar. MmmHmmm, just like my sinful doctor friends who smoke like chimneys, and my chef friends who live off of beer, hard liquor, and mcdees. Which begs me to question, why are we so drawn to the things that we know are bad for us, and why does it feel so good to not practice what we preach sometimes?
(Ok Ok I admit, my shinning moment this semester was going straight to Takahachi, my favourite sushi digs in Manhattan, and inhaling a bowl of toro over what I call the best vinegared sushi rice in town – after I had sworn off eating endangered tuna for a month during my markets research paper. YUP. “Hell TASTES SO GOOOOOD” and crying for three days straight over the current Oil Spill Crisis and while watching “The Cove”.)
Don’t get me wrong, not all sugar is bad, and I LOVE SUGAR. I just have a growing repulsion to neon food, which reminds me of three teenage girls on the bus the other day all sucking on fist sized jawbreakers covered in a radioactive rainbow of powdered sugar. Their mouths were glowing blue when they snickered at each other that made me want to gag. Foods nowadays are wayyy too sweet that tries so hard to overcompensate for the lack of fat that should be present, in flavour and in nutrients. Like yogurt on the market these days. What’s up with all the fat free low fat crap? Why would I want to eat fat free milk fat? may as well call it sugar paste, and may as well tap that syrup straight into my veins with an iv. May as well.
At a recent Food Studies Lunch Reception, A and I were like teenagers on crack when we tried the new Truvia non sugar sweetener ‘made from’ or extracted from the stevia plant known to be 1000x sweeter than sugah. It was indeed. We were both surprised at how little we added to our super sour cranberry cocktails in order to kick it into high gear.
So I can’t help but ask also:
If we start defining what candy is, can we start by defining what food is? HAHAHA…Perhaps because what and why we consume feels so good because it is so bad. Maybe we all have rebellious kids inside of us who just want food to be fun again, sweet, creative, and carefree.
or maybe it’s because when we were younger, it was our first encounters of joy through consumption, of something yummy, of things that we just wanted more of…
gimme more sugahhhh!
“so what’s wrong with sugar? I LIKE SUGAR” said a colleague of mine in class one monday evening when we were discussing all the new soda taxes being put into place. She got really defensive, like someone was trying to yank the lolipop out of her mouth. Or the Koolaid. My dish is this – I don’t mind the conversations about what counts as good or bad, and how candy or sugary drinks is ‘defined’, my question is, people don’t mind paying for things as long as they know where their hard earned money is going, So where and what are these new taxes going to pay for? Money in this country speaks the loudest, and as much as I want to fight this reality, I can’t.
It’s been a tough year in grad school, learning about America’s addiction to oil and sugar. And like any child, I have cried and screamed in protest when things I like are taken away from me, hidden away from me, placed out of reach, or even destroyed. It just so happens that I like good food, and it’s taken me a while to retrain my palate again for survival. So all I can say is this, my relationship with food is constantly changing, and I challenge you to question yours too. It is too easy to stick to what we know, to what we like, and to what is comfortable. Emotional eating is always and only an instant gratifying moment that quickly passes, and we are often left wanting more to keep satiated. Thus, as I look forwrd to a nice relaxing summer, to recharge and actually EAT, travel, and enjoy life again, I will walk away from this first year with a new found sense of awareness, of hardcore knowledge about a system that I once did not know. Although there have been many trying times when I just wanted to throw in the towel, and indulge in that burger that might eventually kill me, I am learning how to change for the better, in hopes to inspire others to search for theirs too.
Life is never fair and all you can really ask for is balance that hopefully makes the bitterness of reality just a tad bit sweeter every so often. And for that, I am so greatful that I met B. Thanks for reminding me constantly that Love is strong enough to be all the GOOD in my life that gives me an escape from all the bad out there. You are just like candy…