In Search of the Meniscus

I endeavor to live a healthy lifestyle. This means regularizing patterns of sleep (the Okinawans, who enjoy a lifespan approaching 100 years, swear by this), exercising with cardio routines and light weights (so as not to put too much pressure on the heart with extra muscle that I can't maintain through midlife), and consuming plenty of wholesome, organic, synthetic foods.

I'm a sucker for non-foods that pretend to be healthy. I dig in to them like the wasted shell of man who dragged himself across scorching desert to the heart of a village feast. To increase the intensity of the experience, I read the narratives on the side and back of the box as I eat. I take comfort in their words, in the stories of family farmers who had the good fortune to reap some success four generations ago so that now they're in the perfect position to oversee distribution of their products by a multinational.

The king (or queen) of the boxside narrative is Annie. As in Annie's Homegrown, the pasta maker based in Napa, California. Sometimes, just reading a box of Annie's Shells and White Cheddar Macaroni and Cheese is enough to tide me over until dinner. Consider a box of another stellar product, Shells and Real Aged Cheddar Macaroni and Cheese. The box speaks to me: "Dear Friend." The box is full of life: little bunnies, including a rabbit's tail that you push in to open the box, Annie's signature after a lovely note about the "smooth texture and sharp taste of real aged cheddar," and a photograph of the product that (get this!) is not even enlarged to show texture. That's right: it looks fine just the way it is. No artificial anything! (the preceding sentence in its entirety will soon be a registered trademark.) Zero grams of trans fat! Keep your letters and emails coming! No weird chemicals! Annie's Way of preparing the meal (which sounds suspiciously like everybody's way - boil, stir in, cook, measure, drain, pour - but that's alright). An entire panel about how I can Be Green to Help the Earth Live (I must "speak out on behalf of all of the Earth's inhabitants," including "plankton"). Symbols populate the box like it was from another world - designs that whisper in code near the bottom of the box that the manufacturer purchases renewable energy, uses recycled paper fiber, and uses certified organic ingredients by Oregon Tilth. Oh, and one last thing: please remember to Reduce Your Footprint, Too!

All of this for a product that is suspiciously similar to Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. In fact, the entire product before me (cheddar mac and cheese) is Annie's attempt to speak to the kids who, according to Annie, "want orange cheese." But enough rhetoric. Let's look at the first 10 ingredients: wheat, cultured pasteurized milk, salt, enzymes, whey, buttermilk, cream, salt, sodium phosphate, annatoo extract. Now, Kraft: wheat, niacin, ferrous sulfate, vitamins B1 and B2, folic acid, whey, milk, salt, calcium, Sodium Tripolyphosphate. Yes, Kraft includes a splash of artificial color (which is what Annie's is so desperately trying to compete with through use of her own "orange cheese"). But relatively speaking, you're getting the same thing - same amounts of protein, vitamin A, calcium, fiber, and fat. You miss out on the organic experience, for sure. But given the regulations, a farm can use treated sewage sludge one year and before long attain "organic" grower status.

All of this is missing the most important point - the product, whether made by Kraft or little grower Annie, is NOT A REAL FOOD. Not in the sense of the produce and meats with which human beings co-evolved. It's a fabrication, a figment of focus groups and the minds of other people. It's not how the natural world, in all of its wisdom, elected to provide sustaining nourishment, carefully providing ingredient A along with B, C, and Q because Q aids in the absorption of C and is best consumed along with B. It is, as the box rightfully proclaims, "manufactured," and on shared equipment that also processes eggs. I'm not trying to knock the product at all - I will consume Annie's until my dust is scattered along the tracks of the Trans-Siberian Railroad by my future grandchildren (my children couldn't do it because they were taking part in a preemptive strike against Sri Lanka). And Annie's is one of the more benign "health foods." For example, Nature's Path Peanut Butter Granola cereal includes two nutrition labels on its box: one with the real nutritional value, and one for "an 8 ounce serving of dry roasted peanuts." The latter is brimming with vitamins and minerals galore. Only problem is, most of these are missing from the product that you are asked to buy.

But Annie's is emblematic of a broader trend in our culture: calories are readied for intake, and we eat them not because they are good for us, but because we are told as much. And it takes a lot to tell us in so many creative ways. And that takes money. And for that, we pay. Never mind that a pound of pasta and a hunk of cave-aged cheese, with a dash of milk and butter, would be much cheaper and better for us.

Another of my all-time favorite products (this time a 7% juice beverage) is Orange Mango with Mangosteen Honest Ade. It's wonderful for so many reasons. But extra kudos go to Seth and Barry (yes, the best health food manufacturers put names, and hopefully faces, to the product) for the meniscus at the top of the bottle. They fill their bottles liberally, all the way to the brim, and I mean precisely to the brim. Reminds me of those days in high school when you played with test tubes and learned how water molecules attract molecules in the glass tube, tugging the water slightly higher than it should otherwise travel near the sides of the container.

And if I'm going to pay $1.99 for 16.9 ounces of mostly water, it helps reassure me that I've done the right thing when I'm welcomed to the beverage consuming experience with a meniscus. Other drinks don't fare so well. I bought a pint of Naked juice the other day for over $3, and the entire neck of the damn bottle was empty! Not cool. Perhaps it was to remove some weight from the juice so as to save on shipping costs. Or maybe it's part of the broader trend of downsizing foods. Don't believe me? Just look at a slice of Wonder bread nowadays. You may be able to eat it with real cheese, but make sure that your favorite gouda is sliced like a deck of playing cards.

Vaya con Dios - Ordinary Skill