Once on the Lips, Twice on the Hips

I was driving past McDonald’s today and glanced up at the sign see a line of text that I hadn’t noticed before: Billions and Billions Served, it said below the monstrous ‘M’. The sheer thought of “billions and billions” cramming Big Macs and Cokes into their guts is disturbing, granted it didn’t happen all at once (in somewhat of a Big Mac Bang), unsettling nonetheless.

I know I know—McDonald’s is a really stretched-out, overworked and reworked, deep-fried and breaded topic that’s been flipped and abused, namely since 2004’s Super Size Me, kicked down, beaten up then stuffed into Happy Meal boxes and paper bags and served to “billions and billions” around the world. If there is one thing that you cannot escape traveling the world, it’s McDonald’s. I can recall seeing at least eight in every country I visited, always busy with famished tourists and locals. While in Amsterdam I took the liberty late one evening to visit the Golden Arches and indulge in a McFlurry for some ridiculous €1.83—which really made me wonder, for so cheap, what the H they really put in there.

Later on during my drive I was stopped at a light near a McDonald’s billboard. Gee whiz, I thought, I can’t escape this place. The board was fairly sparse save a gi-gan-tic burger, which in real life must have stood eight inches tall but the scale of the billboard made it 10 feet, with a three-foot thick beef patty. There were only a few simple words on the board, something like “Beefy. Tasty.” The burger was glistening. I felt sick.

So why do feel the need to prattle on about Mickey D’s? It’s not about them, but more about what’s around in general. Junk everywhere, and invitations to junk. I flipped over a receipt to look at the coupons on the back and found bargains for the China buffet: Buy One Buffet at Regular Price, Get the Second Free. A sudden flashback of the last restaurant I worked at comes to mind, visions of people gorging themselves with plates and plates of fried noodles. It took me working there to realize how destructive and disgusting this is—yeah, I used to do it, too.

I’ve never been so aware of what I consume as I am now. During my first semesters of college I’d go to the grocery store and load my cart with the cheapest food I could find, loaves of white bread, sugary cereals and granola bars—things I thought were healthy. Oh, and Oreos. I love Oreos, I will always love Oreos, they will always be a staple in my diet; if only ‘Double Stuf’ didn’t translate to ‘Once on the lips, twice on the hips.’ Eventually I learned that 98 percent of what I was filling my body with over the years was high fructose corn syrup, sodium, enriched bleached flour, and trans fat. I imagined my organs engaging in a civil war inside of me: my stomach was ticked off that it was full of crap, swindled into thinking it was getting fiber and nutrients, while the HFCS surged forth, telling it to keep eating. And the poor Our Family canned veggies couldn’t get in a word edgewise because they’re suffocating in salt and never stood a chance at being liked by the ol’ tum, or my kidneys for that matter. Agh! Egads! Are you trying to hurt me? And must you really smother that in cheese?

More conscience efforts are being made, and I’ve scrapped a lot of the things that make me feel deep-fried. I learned that if I feel like a jumbo Oatmeal Creme Pie after I eat one, it’s probably my body telling me it hates me. Alas, I’m getting better at this. One of my new secret favorite things to do is shop for fresh produce. I know saying this has automatically aged me 20 years and made me 10 parts more lame, but really. Too often in the past I’d skip straight to the freezer aisles and forget where the good, real stuff was: peppers, zucchinis, tomatoes, onions and herbs, fruits and beans. I’m quite new to the practice and have still to really get into it—right now it’s overwhelming, and quite scary—but with time I hope to learn to gloriously meld ingredients…fresh ingredients. Then I can truly make something that’s “Tasty.”