A Big Mac

Hi, welcome to McDonalds! What can I get for you?

Ugh, this was how every day started at work and I had enough of the boring, mindless routine. Especially when he was looking at me. Who is he you ask?

I mean look at that. The only people who don’t want to shove that down their throats are vegans. I had to look at that picture staring down at me every minute of every day as people ordered a Big Mac expecting to get that beauty on their plates when all they got was sad, little me. I could never compare to him. He had the perfect proportions, the perfect cheese melt, and a perfect sesame seed bun. What else would customers experience other than sadness when their burger came back and did not look as appetizing? I was doomed to disappoint.

That photograph ruined my confidence not simply because it existed, but because of what it did to the people who viewed it. I would have been accepting if that beautiful burger lived without anyone seeing it, because then I would have nothing to be compared to. However, these photographs have a certain “attraction and provocativeness” that the human brain simply cannot deny. Yes, that photograph may be a lie, but we cannot fault the company because they are simply trying to sell a product that everyone should know is not realistic. Instead, the fault lies with the humans who naively believe that the burger they get will be perfect every time. 

The Food Police

It is a sad fact of life that people are no longer allowed to eat what they want when they want to eat it. As vegans foretell the death of the world at the hands of chicken-wing lovers, society has become increasingly blind to the true issues revolving around food. The culinary elite wish to turn everyone into organic-eating and vegetable-loving citizens without regard to the costs. Will these changes somehow be affordable for that single mother of two hungry children? If faced with the choice of an expensive GMO-free meal or some cheap fast-food burgers, which one will she pick?

The answer may seem obvious to you; however, the “self-appointed” food police simply ignore it. Their petty quarrel over the proper labeling of food pushes the real wars of hunger and poor working conditions of farmers to the backdrop. Due to pressure from the government, these farmers are forced to work and work at the risk of being exposed to extremely dangerous pesticides just so that they will be able to meet their production quotas and earn their subsidy. Yet, this is ignored and the food police continue to pin eating decisions on the individual, blaming them for their unhealthy eating choices They firmly believe they have some God-given right to tell everyone exactly what they must cook and eat. However, the real core of the food problem lies within the economy.

The Real Core

We need to focus on making cheap, healthy food and making sure that those who rely on school lunches can actually get the nutrients they need. It is not the food itself that requires reform, but the standards of the industry that call for top-to-bottom change. 

A Banana

No matter how many times you are told, you never listen. Never. For 5 minutes you may consider changing your habits but then you realize that might involve work and active thought and you decide against it. If you will not listen to renowned scientists and the environmentalists that are consistently antagonized, maybe you will listen to me. Yes, you who elect officials in the pocket of the logging industry that wishes to turn my homeland into a barren “desert”, chopping down my brothers and sisters like slicing through butter. 

You who carry around your didactic cloth bag because you are trying to “go green” while you simultaneously drink out of your plastic water bottle.

You, whose selfish act of buying that gas guzzling car just because it makes you look cool in front of your friends will cause generational change that you have never even considered. 

You are all guilty of this. Sure, once in a while you may enter into a phase of environmental fervor, but that is all it is – a phase. It will always fade into the background as more important things come up; let them chop down the trees you say as long as that new shoe store gets built in its place. You may form twisted justifications for the behavior of your species, but as always your fatal flaw is shortsightedness. You fail to open your eyes and look at the big picture. That shoe store will be long gone in a thousand years, and at the rate you are going, so will this planet. As the rainforests dwindle, the ice caps melt, and temperatures rise, I ask you to just consider your actions more carefully in order to preserve the planet for all of us. 

There Is No Unmarked Bread

            As I gaze across the listless store aisle, I see those lucky vegetables; the raw ones that have the privilege of not needing those painful stickers. As I glance to my left and my right, I see my suffering brethren; the bread that unwillingly shouts if it is either gluten free or GMO free. 

If we could rip these labels off and venture forth into the world unshackled, by all means we would. However, people can only look at us for our labels and not our actual quality. Consumers see us lined up, patiently waiting for their purchase, and they carefully pick which one of us suits their needs; we have no say in the matter. Meanwhile, those raw vegetables require no such inspection because people just stroll up and pick whichever one they want since they all look the same anyway.

Unlike us, they have “the option of being unmarked.” Also, every fruit will always be healthy, yet the same is not true for bread. Even if we are made with whole wheat bread and no high fructose corn syrup, some will say we are still not healthy enough. Many days I wish that I could just blend in and remove my labels, but sadly that day will never come. America is too obsessed with labeling everything in life be it red states and blue states or just plain old bread. The consumer constantly needs to know my entire life story from birth to shelf in order to determine whether I am good enough for their kitchen. Ironically, most of my labels end in the word “free” because consumers do not actually care for what is inside of me; they care for what I do not have. This deeply saddens me because we do not have the freedom to exist without labels unlike the vegetables. Often times, I just want to sit there on the shelf and not have anyone come and inspect me like an animal in a zoo. But since I am bread, there is no chance, because there is no unmarked bread. 

A Pepper

            I hear the sounds of chopping, mixing, and boiling; through the small crack of the fridge, I see her slaving away at the cutting board desperately trying to feed her hungry family. As I wait to be turned into a delicious stuffed pepper or a light pasta salad, I see her daughter learning the tricks of the trade; I do not know where her husband and son are. 

If not for their voices at the dinner table or their steps through the kitchen, it would be hard for me to figure out that they even existed. I wondered why on the days when she was sick or tired they decided to order a pizza or pick up some Chinese food. They depended on her to “cook their meals” every single day.

            I thought back to my mother who had once been an ingredient on a Gordon Ramsay special, my grandfather who had been in Jamie Oliver’s kitchen, and my brother who had been served in a Wolfgang Puck restaurant.

These places are Holy Grails for us peppers and I realized how much of a disappointment I actually was; I only ended up in some sad suburban kitchen that would never reach any fame. Of all the famed places my family had reached, the cooks always seemed to be a husband, father, or son; they were never the mothers or daughters I had grown accustomed to. I found this very strange because in a field where women are expected to know more than men, the very best, the crème de la crème, are mostly men. I have not come across a good justification for this sad fact and I do not think one exists. The cooking industry, both in the home and on the television, needs to change. 

Fowl Play

It is truly disheartening to those, who walk through farms, or travel through nature, when they see the animal pens, sparsely filled with thin and sickly looking chickens who cannot even hope to feed the reasonable appetite of the average American. These chickens instead of being a good source of meat, are made to sit there and just look hungry.

            Surely it is agreed by every farmer that this plethora of poor chickens needs to be fed more in order to produce more meat for the consumer because these animals cannot fulfill their purpose in life. Also, the manner is which chickens are killed is very time-consuming and makes the poor farmer gaze into the chicken's eyes as they take its life.

Since there are only around 8 billion chickens in the U.S. and 300 million hungry Americans to feed, how can we expect everyone to get a decent amount of their favorite meat? This is not a fair distribution and the poor chicken is not able to feed as many mouths as it could.

My solution, if carried out, will make sure each American never has to feel peckish again, that the chickens will be extremely healthy, and that the process we use to kill chickens will be improved greatly.

I will now “humbly” propose my solution to this grave dilemma that faces our country today.

My friends in labs have developed this magical drug that they have assured me will make a normal chicken two times as big and that they will be a much healthier size. 

Doesn't he look so happy?

We do not yet know what else this drug will do to them, but that is no matter; as long as they grow it will be beneficial for everyone. Furthermore, because of their large size they will not be able to escape the farm because they will not be able to move which will make sure that they do not face danger in the wild. Also, in order to speed up the process with which they are killed, we will drop them in a machine with hooks that will simply grab them and give them one simple cut to end their life. This is much better than the other long process and it frees up the farmer’s time to attend to more important matters.

I hope the agricultural community will take my suggestion into consideration and possibly reform the chicken industry both for their sake and ours.

Italian Pizza

            Originally, pizza was normally sized with typical proportions of cheese and tomatoes and it was not heaped with mountains of toppings. But then the Americans changed it. Now, the Domino's online order comes with an option for extra cheese as if the entire supply of Wisconsin is not enough. In fact, every single topping comes with an option for extra because what we have is never enough.

Italy

America

            At the end of the Domino’s pizza order you can pick your sides and your drink. Instead of going with just water or maybe even some juice, most people will go for the giant 2-liter well of their favorite sugary muck. Even better, they will go for the “diet” version because they want to start eating healthy, although that will only give them justification to go for another slice of that oversized pizza. The best part is that Americans will complain about going to their “holy-mouth-man” every year 

while on the drive back they will be shoveling Snicker’s bars down their greedy throats.

            Also, Americans seem to believe that their food is unique, that their culture shines through in their cuisine. However, they are blind to the fact that their food is just an amalgamation of the food of other cultures. When salsa and guacamole are far more popular than their bland counterparts of ketchup and mustard and when most people would rather take a taco over a boring peanut butter and jelly sandwich, Americans need to realize that it is not a terrible thing to embrace other cultures.