The Revolution Starts Now.

Just when you thought Hardee's was winning the War on Terror (killing Americans sloooowly...very slooowly), KFC has upped the ante.  With Hardee's, the goal has always been how much meat can we get between the buns, but KFC opted to ditch those needless carbs and just return us to our neanderthal roots, where waiting for the bread to toast was for the weak and thumbless.  No, here is a bacon and cheese sandwich, nestled between two deep fried boneless chicken breasts. 

But, last weekend, as I read an article about this purgatorial poultry and began to blog about how misguided the fast food chains and their heavy-user ilk are, I realized that getting mad at the fast food industry is like getting angry at Ann Coulter - neither are going away until we stop patronizing them, so beating the drum just gets more people to line up for what they're pitching.  I saw it in an AJC blog about the Double Down just last week.  A hardy portion of those who said they were going to go buy one of these Double Deaths was doing so just to anger the 'tofu nazis' who want to put nutritional information in everyone's hands and make people more aware of what is in their food.  

Really, any person in their right mind who willingly consumes one of these 550 calorie, 32 grams of fat, beige and brown fillet o' sadness knows what they are getting.  And as strong an advocate as I am for all restaurants to make their nutritional information available to ALL customers, I don't think you look at this thing, then look at a salad, and really have to dwell on which choice is going to be fuel and which is going to be luggage. 

No, the battle that I am more interested in  - right now, at least - is the one that I've given over excuse after excuse to.  Every few months, when a milestone in life comes up - New Year's, the Peachtree Road Race, or in this case, my 43rd birthday - I say to myself, "I could do better as the family food shopper and cook...for my whole family."   For us, the problem is not the fast food circuit.  We hit it too infrequently to be a true victim of their wares.  No, instead, I've realized that my enemy is - must be - my neighborhood grocery store.  How does it happen?  Well, here's the conversation that has happened in our house more than once:

Me:  We really need to start shopping exclusively at the Farmer's Market.

Wendy:  I'm all for that.  We'll eat better and save money.

Me:  OK, I'll make my menu for next week's meals and go shopping in a day or two.

Me (three days later):  Well, now we need paper towels, and the milk at Publix is cheaper, and the Farmer's Market bread is so fresh it goes stale after a couple of days, so we waste money there...I'll just go to the grocery store.

Me (two weeks later):  Well, I know it's not good for us, and I'm not going to eat it, but I got a frozen salisbury steak for y'all to share because they were on sale and I thought I'd...I'd...oh dear God, please forgive me!!!!  I'm trying to murder my own beautiful family with a genetically disfigured microwavable meal made from the parts of the cow that even McDonald's deemed too gross to use!

Me (an hour later):  I should really go to the Farmer's Market. Maybe tomorrow...unless we need detergent.

You see the cycle.  The only way I'm going to be able to break this is to start viewing the grocery store as a predator, as the enemy, the people who are diametrically opposed to my family's well being.  I'm talking Tea Party-at-Pelosi angry, NPR Listeners-at-Palin pissed.   And if you watch movies like "Food, Inc.", "Killer At Large", or "SuperSize Me", your fire of indignation won't need much stoking.  They all lay it out pretty well.  

The food industry, known as "Big Food", is basically a conglomerate - about six companies provide America with over 90% of our food.  Really, good luck buying something that Conagra or Monsanto don't have a stake in.

What does this mean?  Well, most of our off-the-shelf food has corn in it, from our meat to our coffee to our bread and juices.  Most everything we buy at the grocery store has undergone processing, preserving, chemical additives, or genetic modification.  Food isn't so much grown anymore as it's made.  There's a scene in the film "Fast Food Nation", where Greg Kinnear works in a food lab and adds a chemical to a new fast food burger to make it smell like it was grilled.  That way you don't have to actually, ya know, grill it.  Just add some Red Coaxaclymanethate 16 and we'll all come running.  It's Pavlovian, and while it's easy to blame Pavlov, the fact is, we're smarter than dogs...and we should know we're being played.  

I'm tired of the smoke and mirrors, and tired of being treated like a hypnotized lacky by the food industry.  I want to make a change.  I want to stand up for something that matters - like farmers' livelihoods, animals treated with at least an inkling of compassion in the process of their all too brief lives from caged birth to slaughterhouse, and most of all, and most selfishly, I want to know what it feels like to put real food in my body again.  It feels like it's been too long, because our lifestyle makes it too easy to cave in.  I'm a total caver, a nutritional spelunker of Olympian status.  The treadmill to good intentions doesn't lead much of anywhere, it seems.  

So, here I go...an effort to do the right thing, and the audacity to say it out loud so that the people who read this blog - be it a dozen or a hundred - hold me accountable.  

Wish me luck, and for those of you who are well-versed on this whole subject, feel free to pass along your wisdom.  

It's time to ante up, not Double Down.