Life is about making choices. When you choose one option, you are also saying no to many others. - Luis E. Romero
Now that we are into the second half of January, those pesky New Year’s Resolutions are in the rear view and we can all relax and go on about our business. Are they even a thing anymore? I think the last time I considered making any sort of NYR, we were in a different century. By the time I finally gave them up, I was just phoning it in. I had a short list of resolutions that I recycled from year to year because I never followed through on any of them, and thus they were eligible for repurposing. Work smarter, not harder, amirite?
Leading my list of resolutions was always ‘lose 10 pounds’. Didn’t matter how many I actually needed to lose, as this was mainly symbolic. So many resolutions have something to do with diet. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised since we are in the midst of an ongoing obesity epidemic. Thanks, Big Food!
The topic of challenging ourselves to eat healthy reminds me of a rather amusing set of factoids I uncovered while I was researching my new book. I was digging around into the history of some of the early mass-produced foods that coincided with the Industrial Revolution.
More factories meant a need for more workers, which meant more people moving from country to city for jobs. Moving to a city and working all day every day in a factory made it kinda hard to grow your own food and cook everything from scratch. Hence the emergence of convenience foods.
But I digress.
Convenience foods grew in popularity towards the end of the 1800s and on in to the 20th century. Two in particular caught my attention because a) they are still around today, and b) initially both were specifically designed to nourish the body without getting you too excited about what you were eating.
Let me repeat that: they were supposed to taste like nothing special. Not because the food guys didn’t know what they were doing. Oh, no. They knew exactly what they were doing. And here’s the deal: back in the day, some folks thought if any experience was too enjoyable, it was to be avoided. Because enjoying something ordinary might put ideas in your head about maybe enjoying other stuff.
To put it another way, Graham crackers and corn flakes were initially developed to ensure eating them wouldn’t make you want to have sex.
Can I get an ‘oh, honey’?
I know it seems silly now. But back in the day, they didn’t know as much as we know now about how the human body works. In the 1800s, it was a revolutionary idea that what you eat has a direct impact on your health. Probably because folks didn’t live as long, and were usually done in by outside factors like epidemics or childbirth long before heart disease or diabetes or cancer could finish them off.
So when people like Sylvester Graham came along and expanded the idea of temperance to include anything that gave you joy, not just alcohol, it set off quite a firestorm. No booze, of course. No meat. No tobacco. Not even any spices, for crying out loud. The temperance societies loved it. The butchers and bakers, not so much.
But you gotta eat something. Graham came up with his cracker recipe, and they’re still hanging around, 100+ years after the fact. He would be furious to know how much sugar and spice and preservatives the Big Food overlords have added over the years. He is no doubt spinning in his grave.
Speaking of, is it small of me to snigger that Graham died at age 57 of complications from an opium enema?
The other deliberately bland food is the humble corn flake. Its inventor, John Kellogg, was quite something. Like Graham, he felt strongly about what he thought of as clean living. No booze, no meat, yada yada yada.
Part of me wanted to root for this guy. He did a lot with a little. No formal education, but was able to complete medical school. Kellogg was obviously a bright guy. We have him to partially thank for the invention of peanut butter, and the term ‘granola’. He and his wife fostered scores of kids throughout their 40-year marriage, formally adopting several. All well and good.
Until you discover this bright guy was also a fan of eugenics, and that he and his wife had no natural children because he was a proponent of sexual abstinence. Okey-dokey. At least he learned his lesson from Graham. John lived into his nineties. The enemas on offer at Kellogg’s fancy-schmancy health spa Battle Creek Sanitarium contained yogurt, not opium.
Anyway - back to the corn flakes. John is recognized as the main inventor of the corn flake. A few others were involved in the process, including his brother, Will. When Will suggested they add sugar to the recipe, John refused, presumably because that would make them taste good, and we couldn’t have that, now could we? But Will knew a good thing when he tasted it. So he went off on his own and founded what is now, you guessed it, the Kellogg brand behemoth.
My main takeaway from this tasteless rabbit hole is that no one seemed to understand the uphill battle it would be to try to take away one of the few pleasures in life people had back in the day. I am put in mind of a comment made by a researcher involved in an experiment that reduced calories for lab rats to see how it affected longevity. I’m paraphrasing, but he said something like yes, we have found if you drastically restrict calories, it can result in living a longer life. But why would you want to?
I will leave you with three things.
I finally got around to reading Susannah Clarke’s latest book, Piranesi. You may recall Ms. Clarke as the author of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. It’s one of my favorite books of all time. I am happy to report Piranesi did not disappoint. So odd, so inventive, so magical.
A local book lover and fellow writer, Rob Espenscheid recently sent this marvelous New Yorker article my way. Reply via email or in the comments if you see what I did there.
Mind officially blown. No more cooking spray for this gal.
My latest book, Double Fault, is available now on Amazon.
When an investigation of illegal match fixing by the Russian mob brings the FBI to her tennis club in the person of hunky agent Wilson DuBois, Veronica Burk vows to help him solve the case quickly before her own very successful gambling habit falls under suspicion.
Ventured is available now on Amazon.
When she takes a chance on making a new life for herself, French orphan and cutpurse extraordinaire Belle must find a way to survive in the New World—or she may not live long enough to enjoy it.
My YA trilogy is also still available if historical fiction isn’t your thing.
Brody Morgan grew up starring in commercials for his dad's mega food corporation. What will Brody do when he discovers what he's really been selling?
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I laughed at the irony of the temperance philosopher dying from an opium enema. I guess he really didn’t understand what opium was? My motto is eat anything you want in moderation and enjoy your life. Happy lunar new year.