In Defense of Cookies

So I am totally engrossed by this book I'm reading, "The Omnivore's Dilemma," a non-fiction book of over 400 pages. I can't put it down. I'm supposed to be reading a book club book that I picked, and I haven't started it because I can't stop reading about farm subsidies, corn processing, grass-fed v. corn-fed beef, and the impact of the industrial-organic farm industry on our national food systems!

I'm telling you, this book is crazy good. I highly recommend it.

I feel so much more enlightened about the cycle of our food... from farm to harvest, to processor, to supermarket, to our table. Everything from USDA policy, to the blight of the family farm, to the giant hold processors like ADM have on our nutrition and therefore our health. I feel confident now that I should eat whole foods and feed them to my children. That I should eschew the packages of heavily processed cookies, crackers, granola bars. That I should put back those products that have hydrogenated oils, corn by-products, and sugar. That I should buy organic for our health, the health of our soils, for the small-time farmer, and for our environment.

And yet, here I am eating M&M cookies made from a giant tub of pre-made cookie dough. First ingredient sugar, third ingredient hydrogenated oils. And I made not 3 for me, but 24, so I could feed them to my kids and my neighbor's kids after school. Isn't that health-ful of me?

What is wrong with this picture? Why is it that I can totally get it on an intellectual level, but then when it's time to make the decision about whether or not I buy this junk, I think, "well, a little extra yellow dye #5 never hurt anyone."

Maybe if I read enough about how all this chemically-produced toxic shit that we eat is killing us, I might just join a food co-op, buy my own steer, raise my own darn free-range chickens and wear burkinstocks. But then I might also end up a single mother with only visitation rights.

But I have hope. I'm thinking little by little this will seep into not just my brain but my purchasing decisions. And they will ultimately change completely, not just partly. And I'm thinking that if I do it slowly enough, Ric won't notice when we've joined a commune, and I start wearing large flowing skirts, and I'm grinding my own wheat and I stop shaving my legs. Well, that last part might give him pause.