…that food is to be enjoyed not endured

Posted by Charlotte on September 24th, 2008 filed in Celebrity, Food & Drink, Random

And I speak as one who has gone through various regimes now and then. I went on an anti-candida diet in my early twenties and cut out sugar and yeast. The first and last major detox I’ll ever do, I felt hugely better and lost too much weight in the process. Alas my 34C poitrine shrank to a B and has stayed that way ever since. Blah.

There is no doubt you can alter your shape and your health by changing your food habits, but be warned, some eight years later my friends still ask if I can eat bread when they’re making sandwiches or if I’m allowed cake at their daughter’s birthday party. And they really have no sympathy that the misogynist diet god took my boobies away either. 

I have no problems with detoxes as a whole. Or the odd fast, or juicing, steaming, eliminating chocolate or eating more protein or vegetables or whatever. My issue is when food faddism becomes a permanent way of life, and before you know it, the roast potato is anathema. The faddist inhabits a parallel gastronomic universe, one where pub lunches, sunday roasts, puddings, pizza, hamburgers, pasta are seen as strychnine to general health. And also to the social life, because you can guarantee that the food faddist will drop to the bottom of every guest list – I mean even the full-blown food allergy sufferers, the ones who carry adrenalin on their person rather than a dozen pernickity concoctions in tupperware  - get a rough deal at the table. “Oh damnit darling, I completely forgot about your peanut thingy, you wouldn’t mind picking them out of the curry would you?”

The simple fact is that food is more than nourishment, it is one of the great pleasures in life, and it’s up to the individual to temper it somewhere between gout and asceticism. Which brings me to the inspiration for this post, Bryan Adams, of Everything I do I do it For You fame, or more appropriately these days Everything I Eat Is Not Made From Animals Or Fish So Unless You Like Raw Artichoke I Won’t Do It For You. 

Bryan was featured in the Inside Out section of the ES Magazine last Friday, which details the food habits of the weekly interviewee followed by some food related questions. When I say ‘food’, food isn’t really Bryan’s thing – health is his thing – and as such he’s ‘…very slim due to (his) diet.’ A bag of crisps is as indulgent as the Canadian gets, says the blurb. 

Come again?

A bag of crisps. An indulgence?

Not a supplementary snack, an accompaniment to a pint of lager, a precursor to the main event. But an indulgence…

I ask you world, is this faddism gone mad? I really hope that Bryan is playing checks and balances with an humungous crack cocaine habit because otherwise this man is a disgrace to rock n’ roll. I urge you Bryan, go seek out Ronnie Wood. Teach each other. Go and eat pizza in Naples, pasta in Bologna, sushi in Tokyo. Ronnie needs your help too, he’s looking awfully gaunt. And you Brian need to re-think that rider of yours. Tell me what it is again Bryan?

“My rider is fruit, veggies, some nuts and dried fruits.”

Ronnie’ll sort that out in no time, Bry – he’s got Russian teens, vodka and tons of crisps. 

 

“Has anyone got any leftover pizza I’m starving!” Bryan is waking up the neighbours.

 

Further Reading:

Anthony Bourdain – Les Halles Cookbook