To our health in 2009

Primary responsibility for your health will reside with you, no matter what — or if — President Barack Obama’s plans work out. The body is a machine. What you put in is what it has to work with. The better the fuel you consume, the less repair it will need later on (if not immediately in the form of Tums).

Celebrity chefs are all over the TV. Forgetting those that pander to our most base instincts, like Rachel Ray, Bobby Flay or Emeril Lagasse who love way too much cream, fat, cheese, grills, fries and stodgy food — good celebrity chefs can help you change to a healthier diet. And no, I do not mean diet as in weight-loss program. I mean diet as in you are what you eat (not what you don’t eat or cut down on). With a tip of the hat to Marcus Brigstocke (a wonderful comedian), here’s a dialogue that can help you sort it all out:

Lets’ see, as the typical American we’re 30 pounds overweight, diabetes may be on the way, gout is a certainty with the amount of booze some consume and our American ideal of a balanced meal is one that doesn’t tip the kitchen table over. We’re all guilty of this over-consumption, especially as we treat our kids to big Macs and super-sized fries. We only do it because we love them and anyway French fries are part of their three food groups a day, aren’t they? Well, no. It’s supposed to be five food groups a day and no, fries are not in any of them. Nay-sayers to healthy eating have Palin syndrome, the more they say the less they are right.

With the risk of a load of e-mails calling me an elitist snob, has anyone been following the healthy food, free-range chickens, green vegetables trend available even in almost every supermarket? I am afraid I just don’t buy it when people on TV say they can’t afford to eat free-range meat instead of caged, hormone-laced, yellow fat, antibiotic-riddled, cheaper chicken. I’ve seen what’s in supermarket carts across the nation, I’ve seen the factory-processed, over-packaged, pre-prepared, ready-frozen, boil-in-the-bag, microwavable, straight from the freezer TV dinners, and the shrink-wrapped, ultra-heat-treated, cartoon character endorsed tasty cardboard people force into the 50 free plastic bags they insist on taking home every time they waddle back from the supermarket, with gossip magazines, cigarette cartons, and next-to-the checkout candy goodies poking out the top, not to forget the beer in 20-packs hoisted into old and new gas-guzzlers alike.

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You see, it’s not a question of can’t afford free-range and healthy eating, it’s a question of there was not enough money left after they’ve bought sugar-laced cereals, liters of sugar water colas, every flavor of Pringles on the market, and fifty special-offer frozen pizzas in the shape of Shrek’s face.

And I’m no great animal rights campaigner either. Evolution has been kind enough to make the unfortunate chicken a delicious slow-moving meal for four on yummy, meaty legs with a convenient bag of gravy-making leftover bits tucked up neatly inside the stuffing cavity. Nature is simply brilliant.

But one thing I do find a little worrying is that not one of the mass-production chicken farms will allow any camera or interviews inside one of their no doubt delightful meat factories. When so-called farmers start acting like a teen-ager standing next to his bed while his mother cleans his room, that is never a good sign, “Oh no, don’t look under the bed, oh no I’ll clean under there myself, don’t look under there please, I don’t want you to look...�

“Darling, whatever is under there I am sure it is nothing I haven’t seen before...�

“Oh, no, don’t look under there...�

“Move aside, I’m looking under that bed, no matter what.�

“Oh, no mom, really, don’t look...�

“Oh my goodness, that’s disgusting, you’ve got nearly 8,000 chickens living under here...�

So next time you think about Obama’s health plan — whether you are for it or against it — remember that the sugar-laced frosty bombs, pre-tenderized frozen ready-to-eat meat course, boil-in-the-bag peas with butter-sauce added, pop-top tubes of potato chips with barbecue flavor, and the so-called healthy iced tea with only eight tablespoons of sugar per serving have been, so far, the American food industry’s  longstanding dubious contribution to reducing health care costs. As long as people buy this stuff, they will continue to supply it.

The writer, a former Amenia Union resident, now lives in New Mexico.