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Food, or An Unprocessed Childhood
Yesterday brought a Guardian article to my inbox: How ultra-processed foods took over your shopping cart . In it Bee Wilson recalls eating slice after slice of buttered white bread, and whole tubes of sour cream and onion Pringles. It struck a chord: those were two of the specific staples of my late-teens/early-twenties diet — along with SuperNoodles, PopTarts, Papa John’s, Taco Bell, chicken cheesesteaks, Dunkin’ Donuts and frozen pizza. These are, Wilson explains, : manufactured edibles made from other manufactured items. ultra-processed foods Their role in the global obesity and disease crisis is emerging, and it fascinates me because, though I’ve eaten my share of them, I didn’t eating them — which has perhaps made all the difference. grow up
There was a lot of strange in my childhood, ranging from benign to destructive. Yet, at the other end of the teeter-totter (as we called the wooden seesaw my father carved and balanced on an salvaged driftwood log), were a few quirks for which I’m grateful. My parents’ stopped-clock moments, I’ve dubbed them, undertaken at random, or for the wrong reasons, but nonetheless beneficial. No TV was one — the edict that set me on the path to becoming a writer.
The other is harder to sum in a phrase, no junk food? No processed food? Plain food only?
