Celebrating the American Diet

Recently, I developed a friendship with a guy from Long Island. He wrote to a group of us his bemusement with the term “flexitarian”. It was his first encounter with the word, not certain that it was a real word at all. For those with better things to know and do, a flexitarian is “one whose normally meatless diet occasionally includes meat or fish.” Two decades ago, the Atlanta Journal and Constitution may have nailed it, “The icky neologism touted by the Food Channel…, which is a meat-eating semi-vegetarian who determines his/her eating preference based on mood rather than ideology.” This struck me as akin the flexibility NFL referees demonstrate enforcing “roughing the passer” calls on Tom Brady.

One of my former workmates from back in Denver is a private practice dietitian (or dietician for our British and Canadian friends – it befuddles me the changes, lacking any discernible benefit, that Americans feel they need to make to English. I suppose I could say she is a nutritionist and that would cover the landscape without any references to OED). The fact that she is a nutritionist invariably has two consequences: family and friends ask me to request free advice, which is peculiar because everyone I know can afford to pay a local dietitian. Therefore, no gratis counsel is forthcoming. The second question, “As an expert, what does she eat”? This query assumes I am keeping a food journal whenever we might grab the very rare meal together, or, perchance, I have broken into her house and inventoried her refrigerator and pantry. What I know, and what I share with them is that she is a vegetarian. She is not a vegan, although we did take a vegan cooking class together once. Not only is she not a vegan, but she is also not a terrorist or a communist, all three of whom share a love of tyranny combined with righteous conviction. My response that she is a vegetarian seems adequate for most people and elicits grunts from my (predominantly male) work associates raising and selling bison meat. Their grunts are primordial much like I imagine cavemen after discovering fire and then throwing a live animal on top of it to see, out of pure curiosity, what would happen. The rest is barbeque history written even today by men tending a Green Egg. This grilling obsession is like the male’s hypothesis that he has the singular genetic disposition to add windshield washer fluid to his car. The premise is that he alone possesses the aptitude and knowledge of the location of both the hood release (bonnet for our British friends) and the security latch. Men, being men, are certain of their superiority to find the buried, secret location of that latch, which is strategically concealed in different places by different auto manufacturers with the same ingenuity as God’s invention of the clitoris. A quick aside to any man who Googled “clitoris” and, mistakenly, fell upon this essay - Your wife knows how to operate a grill. She is merely gleeful to see you happily partake in any chore, thus freeing her to have a glass of Chardonnay before dinner.

The more I thought about my friend’s eating habits, I did a little research. Without consulting her, I decided that she might be an ovo-vegetarian. My sense is that if I made asparagus with hollandaise sauce, she would chow it down. For those of you too young to be forced through Latin, think ovaries, thus eggs, thus a vegetarian who while eschewing chicken is more than happy to eat pre-chicken, answering (maybe) once and for all the age-old conundrum, which came first. Although we are both in different aspects of the food business, she and I don’t talk about food any more or any less than other friends. She has kids, I have kids. Because people are more interesting than human fuel, our conversations are more fascinating than assessing micronutrients of Brussel sprouts versus other cabbages. We do wander into conversations about DNA and diet personalization, but what the hell, we are geeks. I have a memory that she eats cheese. She and I are both children of the dairy belt. Her family owned a dairy farm. It is unlikely that one exits that world without a serious love for great ice cream and great cheese. According to the gospel of Google, this would make her a lacto-ovo-vegetarian. To be fair, my nutritionist friend doesn’t label herself at all. She eats what she eats. Best I can tell she is no different from me (except she pays attention to what and how much food she consumes, thus she is svelte and pretty; me, not so much). She is not fond of meat. She really detests seafood, which was expressed to me in no uncertain terms. Therefore, she eats otherwise. One of my oldest and dearest friends is an Olympic athlete, the skinniest, most healthy guy I know, who, ironically, runs a candy factory in Buffalo. (To be clear, he doesn’t run it ironically, it is merely ironic that a very fit, skinny guy is able to hang out with candy all day). He hates squash. He is not discriminatory. He hates all squash. He finds zucchini equally abhorrent to butternut. “It squeaks”. Fair enough; each of us have our food choices. I, for one, dislike every berry species except raspberries. Why raspberries get a pass is one of life’s mysteries that I prefer to leave an enigma.

When I was growing up, the world was divided neatly into three food-consuming groups: most people were “meat and potatoes”; then there were people who knew that in addition to meat and potatoes there were crazy things like seafood and rice; and finally, the hungry. It is the luxury of a very rich society when people can be flexitarian or subscribe to a paleo diet or be one of fifty shades of vegetarian. Add on top, this bit of narcissism, food allergies. Eat a peanut and die. That is a problem. Have a bowl of ice cream and pass gas, or too many of Grandma’s very excellent dinner rolls and feel less than great, welcome to my world. When I drink too much of Grandpa’s moonshine, made from the same grain, I really don’t feel great. The only benefit of the self-absorbed, gluten-free maniacs is the plethora of products now available to people suffering coeliac disease. My recommendation to each of the non-profit associations working to address serious dietary disorders: put together a public relations campaign to convince these hypochondriacs that they have that very same malady. Every food and pharmaceutical company will fall over each other to tap into the new profit opportunity. One must admire capitalism.

As a writer, I love that the English language is so rich. I wonder if I would suffocate writing in Italian or French or Gaelic, the language of “my people”. However, have we all become "flexilexiconarians"? Is its Germanic roots banishing us to a world when absent the right word, we just throw whatever together and invent new words? If I want to eat seafood twice a week and red meat once a month, do I concoct a name? Am I so insecure and need social inclusivity so sadly that I must be part of a group who shares my dietary choices? Has diet become faith? If the “church fathers” (who more likely will be dietitian mothers) proclaim that seafood twice a month, chicken once a month and red meat on the Fourth of July are the fences for flexitarianism, will I be banished to the hinterlands of Midwest diet hell?

When it comes to diet, I am a sinner. I accept that I am a sinner. Even when I try my best, I fail. I like pizza, so I eat pizza. I like red wine. I drink red wine. And, so, it goes. I have discovered that I am not alone. I am a member of a vast majority. Our dietary faith is nameless, absent any secret handshake or knowing glances. We are the unwashed masses. Borrowing from that most American symbol, celebrating our immigrant heritage, I propose our dietary group be called "refusegalitarians". We are the “wretched refuse” and each day my dietary cadre consume enough garbage food to win the admiration of the most discriminating swine. Combining “refuse” with “egalitarian” underscores the truth that we have the most open and embracing, least discriminatory of diets. All foods are equally welcome, as are all consumers. Our motto is “eat what you want as often as you want in whatever quantity suits you.” Joey Chestnut, 14-time hot dog eating champion, is a member (what could possibly be more American?). So is little Susie from Ohio, who has never eaten anything but peanut butter and jelly sandwiches sans the jelly. We are not an oppressive majority. We respect all other diets and include foods from each. We are welcoming to anyone who left our ranks and needs to return to the “mother ship”. We do not judge, condemn, proselytize, or otherwise intimidate non-believers. I had considered calling us the anti-vegans, but the PR department rejected, pointing out that successful movements are “pro” something. Insofar as our movement is a non-movement, its members waddling through life, I am sticking with my original proposal. I am, however, renaming vegans, green supremacists.