Day 57 on which I realize that we're all watching food porn

It’s no wonder that the standard American diet (abbreviate SAD, and appropriately so) basically consists of one long meal interrupted from time to time by work. I’d like to say I made that up, but I read it someplace recently, and can’t find the attribution.

Anyway, I wonder whether we all realize how constantly we’re exposed to food, and pictures of food, and the idea of food. It’s EVERYWHERE, and it’s all the time.

Since I work mostly at home, don’t watch much network television, and I listen almost exclusively to NPR stations, you’d think that my exposure to sexy food pictures, videos, and descriptions would be pretty limited. And it might be, compared to, say, the average grade-schooler who watches 23.4 hours of TV per day or whatever the number is these days.

But just today, I was treated to the following invitations to eat:

·       On my way to a meeting, drove 8 miles and passed billboards exhorting me to “invest in” a burrito roughly the size of a preemie (I do not think that word means what Chipotle thinks it means); try a limited-time Oktoberfest Coney (apparently a wurst with chili and sauerkraut. It’s a Cincinnati thing. You wouldn’t understand); order a sandwich from a local bakery that is literally, or so they say, large enough to feed a defensive line; drink a beer because—I kid you not—the manufacturers know how to spell light; drink another beer because it goes well with Bengals (it’s…on parole and chokes, I guess); and eat some potato chips. As if there needed to be an occasion for that.

·       When I got home, there were 2 advertising circulars in my mailbox exhorting me to shop at some of the EIGHT, yes EIGHT grocery stores that are within a 5-minute drive of my house. No food desert here. Yet what’s on sale is never lettuce or avocados, ever notice that?

·       I then watched a documentary in which the filmmaker ate dinner with his subject and spent an inordinate amount of time in Starbucks.

·       Groupon AND Cincinnati magazine sent me, between them, 5 emails and texts about restaurants and food events that I could buy now and eat later.

·       Plus, at least a dozen times, I passed that magic box in my kitchen that keeps food cold. I only opened it to see what was inside half the time.

I bet we see or hear messages that say “eat or drink this thing, it’s delicious/ comforting/ bonding/ hip” an average of every 10 minutes while we’re awake. And, aware of it or not, we do what the ads say, which is why the advertisers keep spending the money.  I don’t recommend Oktoberfest Coney. It’s just weird.

There is so much going on in our environments in this era that it’s hard to stay aware of all the stimulation and what affect it’s having on us. It’s worth the effort to notice once in a while, though. You might be surprised at how pervasive the message that you should be eating more than you are actually is.