Food

You got your good, y'know, and your bad
You got your food, and your liquor
-- Lupe Fiasco

I once met a seatmate on an airplane who told me, very calmly, that she would always eat the same thing for lunch depending on the day of the week. So every Monday she had a chicken sandwich, and Tuesday it was a salad, and so on. I was astounded, although not as astounded as when I later found out, ironically on AA’s in flight magazine, that a large number of British workers would get exactly the same sandwich for lunch, say tuna and egg, every weekday, and often even on the weekends.

Food, for me, has always been much more than simply sustenance or even nutrition. Where I’m from, right after saying hello, the first question inevitably is “have you eaten yet?”

But does it have to be more than simply a vehicle for calories to continue living? In recent years, I know friends who have switched over to Soylent or Huel for their meals, and there are now miracle obesity drugs that promise to make your food unappetizing! Imagine that: paying lots of money to make your food taste bad.

Maybe Lupe’s point was that food is also part of the bad.