The Philosophy of Food

My brother and I discuss food, a lot. We make menus every week for the following week, where we plan out the main course for dinner along with sides and required accompaniments (e.g., soups require some sort of bread or biscuit as a side, whereas a protein dish needs to be supplemented with vegetables and grains). If we will be running errands on a certain day, we plan for where we will eat lunch, and what we will have that evening in place of dinner (like baguettes and Brie, for example). My brother cooks, I bake, and together we eat pretty well.

I contrast this with his accounts, during other discussions, of growing up in the 1950s in a constant state of deprivation. I have mentioned my mother in other entries: she was not a woman to be terribly concerned about her children’s health or quality of life, and food was never an issue she gave much thought to. If it had not been for our grandmother, my two older brothers would not have eaten very often. Because of my mother’s inaction, some complex attitudes about types of food, food preparation, variety, and food storage developed in my brothers.

I was fortunate: my oldest brother, thirteen years my senior, stepped in when I was born and assumed responsibility for my well-being. He started working at the age of fifteen in order to have money to add to the household, and after a few years he took over the care of the entire family. (Family dynamics were such that without him, we all might not have lasted long.) 

Anyway, between my grandmother and my big brother, my youngest brother and I did not lack for food. We may not have had access to the best food in the world at first, but we did not go hungry; bologna was inexpensive, as was oatmeal and bread. (Of course, as my brother’s career advanced, and his salary increased, our food got better and better!) He has always maintained the attitude that no one should have to deal with hunger. Whenever we have hosted gatherings at home, he always made sure that there was plenty of food, and that everyone could eat their fill. He has paid for groceries for strangers, has donated generously to food banks, and has offered many times to help people in need. 

(He has, on occasion, encountered kids or small families who are literally counting pennies to be able to afford a meal at a fast-food restaurant, and has paid for them without question. Is he rich? Nope, but he is the most generous person you could meet.)

I consider myself to be very fortunate: I have food, and I don’t worry that I might not at some point. There have been times throughout my life where I have not eaten, by my own choice: hospital food, for instance, is dreadful, and a series of fairly recent hospitalizations left me almost fifty pounds lighter. But once home, I had access to anything I wanted. I’ve always eaten abstemiously, but knowing that dinner will be good is definitely a motivator for me. 

We eat well because we eat at home. We live in what one might consider a ‘food desert:’ although there are three regular supermarkets near us, there is a dearth of actual restaurants, and a heavy reliance in our area on fast food. We have all the usuals: McD’s, BK, Jack’s, DQ, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, Panda, plus half a dozen pizza places. The few restaurants near us are chains, although there are another half-dozen family places, serving Thai and Mexican. We also have a brew pub, and a Greek place that’s only open on the weekends. That’s about it. Anything else requires at least a half-hour drive. If you are not a huge fan of fast food, pizza, Mexican or Thai, you’re stuck. If you don’t cook, you don’t eat. And since there’s only us, and we’re both picky (one of us won’t eat leftovers), we take the food that we make seriously.  

I’ve lately seen advertisements for television programs focusing on grossly overweight individuals who appear to take pride in their obesity. I’m not referring to people who might carry twenty extra pounds on their frames, I’m talking about people who carry four hundred extra pounds on their frames. I’ve also seen social-media videos that feature morbidly obese people who record their every bite of food in a single day, sometimes smugly proclaiming that they spend very large sums of money to procure the food, which they then eat as rapidly as they can while taunting their less voracious audience members. The food they consume does not usually consist of vegetables, fruit and whole grains: they tend to gravitate towards fast-food and heavily processed options. I’ve watched a single person eat three large pizzas in one sitting, or half a dozen large burgers, pounds of bacon, dozens of eggs, whole large pans of lasagna, three or four pounds of pasta, entire sheet cakes – so much food! Those videos make me feel some sort of way, though I can’t really describe exactly what.  

On the other hand, I’ve also seen a few videos where the five-hundred-pound ‘eater’ eats large amounts of food while explaining, again with a smirk, that they did not have to pay a cent, as their government benefits allow for all the food they could possibly hope to consume. That for some reason makes me a little angry.

The mainstream media routinely broadcasts concerns about obesity rates in our country, and around the world. 

I contrast that with the homeless people I have met, most often when I have gone to do the week’s shopping (Trader Joe’s seems to be a favorite hangout). Most of the ones I have interacted with have been respectful, and I have rarely felt threatened in any way. Usually, they’re just looking for resources so they can eat. I know it probably isn’t the ‘right’ thing to do, but if I have any cash, I give them money. Not a lot, mainly because I don’t carry large amounts of cash, but I usually have a dollar or some change on hand. I don’t know what their situations are, and I am not going to judge them. No one should be hungry.

Once I start thinking about homeless people, I start thinking about all the people in the world who may not be homeless but who nevertheless do not have enough to eat. According to the World Food Program, about 830 million people worldwide do not get enough to eat, due to economic factors, political conflicts, changing weather patterns and global events (e.g., COVID). What would it take, monetarily, to feed all those people for a year? About $130 billion dollars. Given all the billionaires now in the world, the problem could surely be solved, and would not have to fall on the shoulders of those already struggling to make ends meet, nor indeed on only one or two individuals. Access to food should be a basic human right. 

As an interesting twist, my mind wanders back to the issue of obesity. Now, while there are about 830 million people who are malnourished, according to the World Health Organization there are also about a billion people worldwide (roughly 12 percent of the total population) who are considered obese. Obesity and overweight are very different standards, determined by a number of factors like body-mass index (BMI) combined with other variables, such as muscle mass and obvious presence of fat. Those who are overweight are not necessarily obese; they have a smaller ratio of weight to height. So let’s just focus on the obese people for a minute, or a little over twelve percent of the population. 

In order to become obese, one needs to take in far more calories in food than one burns off. In order to maintain obesity, one would need to regularly consume huge amounts of calories.  By eating 3,500 extra calories in roughly a week, one will gain about a pound of fat. On average, an adult, depending on how much they weigh, needs between 1,200 and 2,000 calories a day, or 8,400 to 14,000 calories a week (between 436,800 and 728,000 calories a year). On average, an obese person, who remains obese long-term, probably consumes around 7,500 calories a day, 52,500 calories a week, or 2.7 million calories a year.  (Just so you know, that’s enough for more than six people to eat appropriately for a year.) Carrying out some simple calculations, therefore, one can determine that roughly twelve percent of the population of the world consumes enough to feed about seventy-three percent of the world’s population. Staggering figures, if you think about it. 

So how do we solve the problem? Good question. Given all these numbers, we know at least two things: there is enough food for everyone to be able to eat and stay healthy, and there is enough money to pay for it. 

I make no judgements. I haven’t been obese, although I did at one point have about twenty pounds more than was healthy for my frame. Because of intervening factors, I now have a BMI of 17.7 (yes, I am very thin). I did try to lose weight when I was heavier, but found it nearly impossible; only later did I discover there were other health crises that were preventing weight loss. I know that a small number of people really can blame being overweight on their ‘genetics.’ I also know that a great number of people live in relative food deserts, and therefore eat what is available, good for them or not. I don’t have any great plans to fix it all. I’m not sure that anyone is interested enough to try to make a huge difference. 

(Elon, are you reading this?) 

No one needs to take a ten-minute $25 million ‘tourist trip’ in a rocket to test the structural integrity of their breast implants. No one needs to have ancient structures dismantled in order to more easily maneuver their yachts. No one needs to pay professional agitators to disrupt townhall meetings or destroy cars. No one needs seven or eight mansions, or multiple multimillion-dollar cars. No one needs to rent small countries in order to make their films. But everyone needs to eat. 

There are a lot of things I don’t know anything about, but I do know this: there is no good reason for anyone in the world to be hungry.