Presenting: The Food Column

More than any of life's other short-lived pleasures, the diversion and gratification brought by food reigns supreme in my hedonistic ventures. Both vice and necessity, stressor and relaxant, food has become a double-edged sword of sorts. At one extreme, the effects of malnutrition or overeating can bring about a quick death, poor appearance, and negative self-image. On the other end of this spectrum, one can find favorable physical health, a prolonged lifespan, and positive self-image. Without making a laundry list of the biological and psychological factors that produce these example conditions, food nevertheless retains a pivotal part of each person's life that extends from physical health to social functioning.

To illustrate this point with a bit more detail, imagine a cinnamon roll. As an enjoyable mid-morning coffee date snack, this five-bites-sized pastry may be delicately glazed with a simple powdered sugar and milk concoction and savored with a cup of coffee or tea in a choice café or breakfast joint, seated alone, with one or two others, or an entire group of friends. Depending on your experience or particular gustatory preferences, this image may be something close to foreign. Instead, that cinnamon roll may fill the majority of a 10-inch plate, balance half a batch of cream cheese frosting on its top, and be quickly devoured piece by piece, its conqueror not forgetting an extra pat of butter for each forkful, sinking further into a favorite recliner watching the final minutes of a late-night infomercial. Perhaps neither image perfectly characterizes your experience with food. Although, I will ashamedly admit to a lack of willpower and high level of ambivalence in matters of healthy self-control that makes both these situations all too close to reality.

Aside from matters of personal health, our food habits and choices raise even greater issues of morality. Although humans are physiologically omnivorous, is the killing of animals justified? Regardless of the issues of veganism and vegetarianism, we can further question the means of obtaining and preparing any food we eat, meatless or moo-ing. As I walk into a favorite restaurant, am I supporting unsustainable, environmentally harmful farming and food production, an unnecessary expenditure of natural resources needed for transportation, unfair trade, and/or unjustly low wages for those persons involved in this massive assembly line of menu options? A prime example of this mistakenly hipster philosophy is coffee. Even in Java 101, the coffee is advertised as 100% organic and fair trade. Instead of dismissing these statements as fad-conforming practices, every coffee drinker in the Campus Center basement can support policies of social justice and environmental sustainability. Yet, these choices should not be limited to the dictates of convenience and others' decisions. Each bite of breakfast in the morning has become a highly personal as well as socially, politically, economically, and morally weighted choice.

As a food column becomes a more permanent fixture in the Star, the amusement and utility of recipe sharing, restaurant reviews, and other mouthwatering musings should not be read without a critical eye. With a growing understanding of the role of food in daily life, culture, and the health of our planet, perhaps less food will end on the dish room conveyor belt, vegetarians and vegans will not be dismissed as misguided tree-huggers or anachronistic hippies, and a recipe for "bananas foster" will appear objectively ridiculous in a February issue of the newspaper.