Food for Thoughts About Food
by Alan Patching
I used to think there were numerous types of food – Japanese, Italian , French, Chinese, Thai and mum's roasts – but now I realise I was wrong. Now I know there are only two types of food in the world – the stuff that does not make you fat, and the stuff that does. The first category is eaten by people who are predisposed to do so by something in their genes, the second by people like me, who have trouble fitting into their jeans.
Unfortunately, all the food types mentioned in my first sentence are made up of the food types mentioned in my second, and therein lies a major dilemma for the majority of the population. Every gastronome worth a pinch of salt and 'just a tad' of cracked pepper realises that it is easy to tell which category a particular foodstuff fits into. If it smells great, tastes delicious and is generally magnificently more-ish, it's in the category that makes you fat. And if it's not in that category, it's most likely to appeal only to rabbits and marathon runners, the members of both of which species usually lie at least two standard deviations from the norm in the IQ department, statistically speaking. To the ordinary food lover, this translates as roughly equivalent with the IQ of Vegemite.
Those of us predisposed to shapes rotund as a result of our love of any food at which any self respecting rabbit or marathoner would turn up their nose realise we have two clearly identifiable natural enemies. The first is anyone qualified to use the letters M.D. after their name. The second is that freakish crowd who manage to have at least one of their members known to every lover of non-rabbit food on the planet. I refer, of course, to those dispicables who have it in their genes to eat exactly what we normals eat, but in far greater quantities than we would ever attempt to eat it, yet never get uncomfortable in their jeans. Leastwise not because of expanding waistlines, but let us not digress. It simply is not fair and just of the Universe to allow any person to look like the Bendon Babe on a starvation diet despite their consuming at every opportunity an entire 5 star buffet, minus salads. These people could eat a bullock followed by a whole cheese platter, wash it all down with a gallon of ice cream, and still produce a cholesterol level less than (Australian Prime Minister) John Howard's popularity rating at the Woomera Detention Centre (for 'illegal' immigrants). As I say, unjust in the extreme, this!
Hark back a couple of months if you will, to New Year's Day, to be precise. It's a fair bet 'lose weight' took its usual place at the top of the usual resolutions list. And based on performance so far, that's exactly where it will be on 1/1/06, if you're anything like me. Let's face it folks, if God did not want us to regularly eat boggy fast food and mountains of garlic mashed taties, he would have inspired the existence of chains like the Luscious Lettuce and Fantastic Fruities to line our highways and high-traffic suburban corners. Maybe even Hungry Jackfruits and KFC – Kentucky Frozen Carrots, of course. (And doesn't that get the juices running, Bugs?)
Sadly, we of grander taste appreciation have long been victims of the merciless from many walks of life. Exploiters tempt us with instant diet concoctions the taste of which makes a stick of celery seem appealing. Who has ever tasted 'diet' anything that comes anywhere near close in taste to the real thing. (Whoops. Did I make a pun?-sorry!). And what sick bastard got jollies out of naming that hail damage looking bane of every woman's thighs – cellulite? If ever apprehended, life on a health food eating regime should be the minimum sentence considered.
Have no doubt about it folks, the quest for a cure for cancer and aids is of prime importance. But it's in the cure for the medical and aesthetic downsides of a lust for real food that real fame and fortune truly lies. And power to all of those grand researchers who rise to the call!
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