Cautionary Consumption
Ellen and I were escaping a cold Summit County May and doing a century (100 mile) ride through Southern Colorado. My job was to try to keep her in sight and to carry the food and money.
Just before departure I switched bike jerseys, leaving six energy bars in the camper. After five hours and 70 miles we were famished and angry – I was famished, Ellen was both. To make matters worse, I also had forgotten my wallet; so even if we had passed an open store, we had only the five dollars Ellen had found in her bike bag.
Cruising into a quaint little mountain town with tepid expectations, we found a trendy little new-age eatery named something like the Hearty Lentil. Ellen went in while I watched the bikes.
“What a great store” Ellen said as she left the Lentil. “Everything is organic.”
Wanting to get to the point I asked, “What did you get?”
“Something you’re going to like.”
“What did you get?” I repeated.
She finally answered: “Yam bread and squash butter.”
“You did that just to punish me, didn’t you?”
I’m all for eating well, but this health food kick is getting out of hand. They take food that everyone likes (bread) and mix it with food that no one likes (yams) and then sell it to unsuspecting consumers so we can live 20 minutes longer.
Everyone likes bananas, carrots and pumpkins, so it stands to reason bread and cakes made from them would be tasty. Who likes yams? That’s like buying a bottle of wine made from lima beans.
The rest of the world laughs at America’s obsession with healthy food, and for good reason. The French, famous for their fondness for rich food and red wine, outlive most of the world – though no one is sure if their longevity is symptomatic of the French diet or that life just seems to pass more slowly while eating slugs and watching Jerry Lewis movies. The British acquired a vast empire upon which the sun never set and did so while eating blood pudding and dousing French fries with vinegar.
If a vegetarian diet is so good for you, why hasn’t a Hindu team ever won the Super Bowl? That’s something to ponder.
All this I was contemplating as I choked down my meal of yam bread and squash butter. More painful than the actual consumption of the meal was listening to Ellen self-righteously extol its virtues.
“This is so much better for us than those donuts,” she proclaimed. “The store owner told me these yams were grown locally. I feel so much better about eating these than I would if we were putting white flour, sugar and caffeine in our bodies now.”
I smiled as I washed down another bite of the sawdust flavored bread with a mouthful of water. There was no sense starting any trouble now — we had only 30 miles to go.
Besides, I had left a cup of cold coffee and Snickers back at the camper.
Jeffrey Bergeron under the alias of Biff America can be seen on RSN TV, heard on KOA radio, and read in several newspapers and magazines. He can be reached at biffbreck@yahoo.com. Biff’s book Steep, Deep and Dyslexic is available at local book stores or at Backcountrymagazine.com.
