Food, glorious food.

Some good humor for your Saturday. Here’s another skeptical post from everyone’s favorite cynical cheerleader, Occam’s Razor.

A new book has hit the stands recently and it’s making a bit of a splash. It’s called The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite. The book was written by David Kessler*, former commissioner of the FDA and in it Kessler goes after food in much the same way he went after tobacco – with the extremely pedestrian observation that people who want to sell something make that product as appealing to customers as possible. It’s kind of marketing 101 but he makes it sound so scientific and he further adds that we are being manipulated – completely against our will, he seems to contend – to like these products. He asks penetrating questions, like “What is it about the vanilla milkshake that drives us to want it?” I know, I know…you’re saying he has some science behind all this, some formula, and you’re right in that he does have a formula. It’s SA + NB + ST + EV = MFDK (where SA is smart author; NB is new book; ST is scare tactics; EV is easy villain; and MFDK is money for David Kessler). Kessler wrote this book after himself losing a great deal of weight and kudos to him for that, but that doesn’t mean he’s unlocked the evil secret to unhealthy food anymore than a recovered alcoholic offers something of value by warning me not to drink wine because the vintners have the craven brazenness to ensure it contains alcohol. Question, doc: what is it about the glass of wine that drives me to want it? Answer: the thought of the money you’re making peddling this book to desperate obese people!

Yes, overweight Americans (of whom there are 500 million, according to most government statistics and most importantly, Wikipedia) may welcome this book as an excuse to pass the buck from their pudgy, sticky fingers to the food manufacturers, but then Kessler slaps his biggest audience with this insult: SKINNY people actually have a harder time resisting food as “they are in the greatest torment because they’ve developed this tight level of control…no one has explained to them why food has become so powerful.” Ah yes, the poor skinny people. Fitting into their clothes, having lots of sex, living longer. Argh, their distress!

I was discussing this book, funny enough, over lunch the other day at the National Museum of the American Indian. One of the great things about the cafeteria here is that it has fare that is quite unique and can’t be compared with typical museum food. The food is traditional and is prepared and served in “traditional” ways, meaning that you can trade a few beads for it. Further, the variety is great….in this cafeteria you can choose to buy food from one of four different regions, each of significance to American Indians – “the southeast,” “the plains,” “firewater,” and “casino.”

Although “traditional” food may be a stretch for some items…specifically I think of fry bread so prominently featured on the menu. A little background on this culinary cardioenemy. See, Americans have been efficient at being bad to certain people in the past, yet pretty inefficient about making amends for our wrongdoing. As part of our very meager effort to assuage our guilt over mistreatment of the Indians, we “gave” them reservations and also sent them huge quantities of food, namely two staples of that healthy European diet: flour and lard. And when life deals you flour and lard, you make fry bread, which the Indians do quite well (talk about a food that “hijacks your brain,” as Kessler would say). So it’s an Indian “tradition” in about the same sense that Harry Connick Jr.’s annual Big, Gay Christmas Show is an American “tradition.” It was foisted upon them and they made do with it because they had to.

On this particular day I passed up the fry bread but felt very culturally in place by trying the most unique offerings I saw: frogs’ legs, a cold salad that had smoked duck, currants, and beans, and some yucca fries in a lime-chili sauce. My friend had, among other things, turtle soup. So there we stood in line to check out, as white as the Osmonds, but feeling ethnically appropriate about our choices. As we approached the cashier something – perhaps a warning tingling in my scalp? – made me turn around and I saw that behind me stood an Indian. I smiled and positioned myself a bit so that he could see – and approve of – my food choices. He looked past me, however, with the steely stare of Sitting Bull and I glanced down at his plate and saw…. a cheeseburger. And chicken strips. Sad irony, no? I felt like shedding a single tear.  Another win for the food manufacturers, and another potential customer for David Kessler’s book!

If I have one complaint about the Indian museum it’s the “gimmicky” food offerings. I suppose that in addition to serving good food they have to be good marketers, but I think they may have crossed the line of good taste with some of their items. A sampling:

The Death of Custer Custard – a cup of blood pudding on top of which an action figure of Crazy Horse holds the severed head of the famous colonel.

Manifeast Destiny – a not-advertised option that allows the biggest, most aggressive, and meanest customer to take as much as he wants without having to pay a cent.

Trail Mix of Tears – Small bag of goodies advertised as a high-carb, high-energy mix of nuts, dried fruits, chocolate, and more that will give you enough energy to walk almost 600 miles nonstop at gunpoint. Almost.

Pigs in a Smallpox Blanket – a bizarre an unappetizing twist on the wiener-in-croissant dish.

White Man’s Bird‘n Mashed Potatoes – replicates a typical Thanksgiving dinner. They bring the turkey and potatoes and most everything else; you bring the rest of your tour bus and completely overrun the place.

But back to The End of Overreating. This book is in the bookstores now, so give it a look. Kessler’s publisher, like any good seller, has made the cover appealing, so people actually want to buy it, “hijacking our brain,” as Kessler would say, with nice design and use of colors so that I’m drawn to pick it up, moving against my own wishes. And it’s even more perfect that they slap a slab of carrot cake right on the cover to draw your eye in, though I’m sure Kessler argued against any efforts to make the book more appealing to consumers. Right?

(*From wikipedia: Kessler moved quickly to make the agency more efficient, cutting the time needed to approve or reject new drugs, including AIDS drugs, and more vigilant in protecting consumers against unsafe products and inflated label claims. It was also under his watch that FDA enacted regulations requiring standardized Nutrition Facts labels on food. In one memorable action, he had 24,000 gallons of orange juice seized because although made from concentrate, it was labeled “fresh”. Kessler was reappointed to the post of FDA Commissioner during the administration of Bill Clinton.)