As much as I love this particular segment of the site, in year two we might be forced to have change it a little bit. Where “Year One AL” (as I have pretentiously decided to call it) found The Fast Food Critic scarfing down various horrible-for-you foods and reviewing, say, side effects of Burger King’s New Frankenstein Burger or McDonald’s McRib’s Mystery Meat or the all you can eat KFC Buffet I stumbled across, this year might have to be a little different. The Reason? Well, for starters one of my New Year’s Resolutions was “No Fast Food.” As in not this year, no exceptions, along with “No Desserts, No Soda, No High Fructose Corn Syrup, No Pork, No Fried Foods, and No Red Meat.” Now I might not get to keep any of those resolutions (I feel like breaking some already) but I sure want to try.
So how to get around this? Well, I could definitely review more non-fast food fast foods (fast casual places like Boston Market and Chipotle) as a cheat, but I’m thinking that will only get me so far. Instead I’m thinking the larger idea to fill up items this year would be to a combination of what this feature was last year (reviews on food) but also to talk about what happens when you give up these foods. I think for many of us, bad foods are our drug.
I’ve never smoked (either cigarettes or marijuana), never drank alcohol anywhere close to frequently, and the only Coke I’m addicted to comes in a plastic bottle or aluminum can. I’ve also managed to eschew sex addiction (made-up) and gambling addiction (very real). So for me the closest thing I have to a vice are three little drugs called salt, sugar, and trans fat. With the monstrously addictive High Fructose Corn Syrup deserving a special place in Food Hell as it’s the crystal meth of the food world: Terrible for you and popping up in the most unexpected places.
I think of “Bad Food” as an umbrella drug with many different parts that could mean KFC or Dominoes or ice cream or cakes or even spaghetti sauce with high fructose corn syrup. I know that after a hard day, I reach for a coke. Before a day I think will be hard, I reach for a coke. Who among us hasn’t dug into a box of cookies and said “Hey, I’ve been good this week. I deserve this?” Or “I’ve worked so hard and am under so much stress. I deserve this.” I think you do deserve to treat yourself…to something better.
And so I hope all of you out there (and because of my stat counter I know there are at least a hundred of you even if only a few comment and that’s okay) will join me in talking about bad food. The way it makes us feel, the way we crave it without really acknowledging it (I know that when I start eating Cheetos it’s almost like I’m doing it in my sleep), why we don’t need it, and why, like any other drug, we would be better off without it.
I think you should do something like eating HOW people can eat healthier because a lot of people feel like it’s too complicated to bother trying.