Healthy And Crazy Don’t Have To Be Mutually Exclusive

• Posted on January 27, 2017
• by Jamie Stahl
• in Food Facts
• 5 Comments.

  It’s not entirely fair for me to pass judgement on the foods that people eat, but I intend on taking full advance of my first amendment right.  Granted I’m not the healthiest eater on the planet, I’m also not the worst.  It’s not like I brush my teeth with left over french fry oil.  I do consume french fries as if I had just been given 3 more hours to live, but I also liked baked potatoes, which are healthy, I think (or healthier at least).  Everyone needs to find a reasonable balanced diet of food for their self.  So, if you’re one of those people who eats tree bark or bird seed as a snack, move the fuck along. 

There’s a big difference between healthy food and things that are questionable as to whether or not they are actually even food.  As a rule of thumb, I’m generally pretty skeptical when I hear or read about, “some guy in the Himalayas who discovered this rare plant that when   placed in a centrifuge, the extraction from it’s roots will allow you to live 10 years longer.”  Like, no.  If some random man ate some weird-ass plant and lived until he was 120 years old, I would not automatically think the 2 were mutually exclusive and start packaging this thing to sell at Whole Foods. 

You may be thinking, “Jamie, if it doesn’t affect you, why do you care?”.  I’ll tell you why!  Because it does affect me.  Not directly, while I’m sitting here munching on some chocolate chip cookies, but this comes up frequently in my everyday life.  I am on social media a lot looking at food, restaurants, recipes, videos of puppies, etc.  I don’t want to be scrolling through pictures of decadent chocolate desserts and land on someone’s photo of wood chips drizzled with a mixture of cocoa and aloe vera puree.  I want that out of my face.  And I certainly don’t want to read about how you made it.  Don’t tell me about the benefits and all the different uses this wood chip snack has, unless it’s to enhance an already burning fire.  Keep that shit to yourself, don’t drag me into it.  I’m just minding my own business watching a video of a man scooping the largest ice cream cone. 

You may also be thinking, “Jamie, you’re being very critical.  It’s not very nice.”  I’m sorry if anyone is offended.  But I told you earlier to go away (see first paragraph, last sentence), so it’s not really my problem.  My problem is the diminishing options of “regular” food listed on menus.  Nothing is basic anymore.  When I want a salad, I want iceberg lettuce with carrots and cucumber and tomatoes and onions.  I want what the “salad emoji” looks like: 🥗.  Salads shouldn’t smell like dirt, or Earth, or landscaping.  There is no need to put fluffy and curly and spiky lettuces in the bowl.  I prefer to understand the ingredients and not have to look every single word up.  Okay, so I don’t know all the types of cheese and I’m not sure what a word means, no big deal.  But my salad should not translate into “rose bush thorns and tropical coral reef shavings with a poison ivy, sans poison vinaigrette.”  I don’t care how much my body will be cleansed from this absurdity or if I’ll automatically develop six pack abs from 1 bite off the fork.  I just can’t do it.  I don’t understand it.  I don’t want to understand it.  I am not trying to understand it. 

Be healthy!  Eat grains and lean protein and vitamin rich vegetables.  Monitor sodium and sugar content in your food.  Ask for sauces on the side and drink detoxing tea.  I think these are all reasonable great ways to live your life.  My issue is when the healthy eating becomes a healthy lifestyle and the healthy lifestyle turns you into a westernized jungle dweller.  When you live in the jungle, you have no choice but to eat leaves, plants, and strange animal parts.  Don’t walk around with a Latte from Starbucks and post an Instagram picture of the bottle of Dulse Flakes you just bought.  Everyone knows you really want a muffin, not some trail mix creation with sea lettuce. 

*Photos taken at Springbone Kitchen, NYC

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