Bento #1

I've neglected this blog because I really haven't had anything to blog about. I've been working on changing how I eat, but I found myself slipping back into bad habits often, rationalizing fast food and sodas far too often.

Enter bentos. A bento is basically a Japanese packed lunch that focuses both on aesthetics and health. There's a set proportion of carbs to vegetables to protein. While I'm not following traditional bento practices, it seemed to me that preparing packed lunches and dinners like this would help me avoid falling into the convenience trap.

Bento #1 is premade for dinner tomorrow night. It has sliced strawberries, a small tamagoyaki (from Just Bento's recipe), and a pea and sausage quinoa (also from Just Bento's recipe stash).


It's not an elaborate bento with anime characters made out of ham and seaweed, but it's healthy and filling, which counts more for me.

The Hyperreality of Food

I covered a lot of philosophy and literary theory in my undergraduate degree. For the most part, we dissected Freud and Foucault, trying to untangle their ideas and apply them to more standard, classic literature. My senior year, however, I took a fantastic class that applied literary theory to digital media - yes, we applied literary theory to Youtube and Facebook.

The concept from that class which had the greatest impact on me and how I perceive things was Beaudrillard's theory of the simulacra. I'm not a scholar of this theory, far from it, but I did get to play with this concept, comparing it to everyday life. The basic concept of his idea is that there is a copy of something real - a simulacra - but the copy is so good and given enough significance by society (symbols are a good example of this, or name brands which become synonymous with the product), that the copy becomes more real in the minds of society than the original. It is now "hyperreal."

I applied this to Second Life for the class. As I was sitting at work the other day, I realized - American food is a simulacra.

We now have "buttery spreads" that are one molecule away from plastic instead of butter. Apples from McDonald's come in sterile, pre-cut, plastic wrapped sections. The sweetener in Diet Coke turns to formaldehyde once it's heated over 86 degrees. Lean Cuisines - purportedly a "healthy" meal - has a list full of chemical compounds rather than whole food ingredients. Even when cooking at home, Americans are often grabbing a box of Rice a Roni or putting some sort of frozen concoction in the oven. Or, my own personal horror, making Hamburger Helper or Kraft Mac and "Cheese."

To most Americans, this is food. We don't recognize the foreign substance under the reality society has cloaked it in. These foods are marketed to us as real - as healthy even, with added minerals and vitamins. This is why the slow foods movement is so important to me. We need to return to a time in which we prepare our own food from scratch and rely less on pre-fabricated pseudo-foods. The convenience "food" industry is booming - but most of the ingredients in those products aren't even food.

It's time for a change. We need food which came from whole, recognizable ingredients. I, for one, am ready to stop eating a half-rate copy of something much better.

Introduction

As is customary, I figured my first post should detail a bit about me. I'm twenty five and currently working as a medical receptionist while I attend law school at night. I was an English major for my undergraduate degree and I spent a lot of my childhood watching The Frugal Gourmet and Julia Child on PBS with my dad. This basically fostered a love of food, reading about food, and actually cooking the food (although that came later). Since many of my family and friends are getting sick of hearing about me talk about food, I figured I should try writing about it instead.

Part of what inspires me to write is the current trend towards the processed, quick food that has taken over our country. I admit, it is convenient. I spent most of my undergraduate years eating quick, unhealthy things (and going up a few clothes sizes as a result). I've been trying to get out of that habit by cooking more - and in my search for healthy recipes, I've read a lot of good books. From Marion Nestle's What to Eat to Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma, I've begun to realize our entire food system - our entire food culture in America is broken. This lead me to ideas from the Weston A. Price foundation, and tons of great food blogs - too many to even list.

I'm hoping this blog will be a way for me to share my thoughts on food, some recipes, and my progress in returning to a simpler way of eating. I'm ready to put down the Lean Cuisine and get real.