Food Phobia
5th October 2022
ZMan scratches his head.
Food plays an important role in every culture. Since culture evolves in a place and that place has certain foods not known in other places, food helps ground the culture in a time and place, which helps ground the people in a time and place. A big part of the answer to the only question that matters – who are we – is the place where the answer was created by our ancestors. It is why our holidays have special foods. They help remind the people of the answer to the big question.
In the West, fear of food is also a big cultural item. For some reason, Western people remain convinced that their food is out to get them. From time to time certain foods have been banned. In pre-modern times the reasons ranged from the superstitious to the ritual, while in modern times “science” is the blame. In this age, we are told every day that something in our diet is trying to kill us. These days, people are often defined by the foods they think are plotting against them.
Fear of food seems to track with belief. The more ideological the person, the more likely they are to be paranoid about food. Vegans and vegetarians are almost always in one of the subcultures on what we call the Left. The exception will be someone who got it into his head that something is bad for his training regimen. Otherwise, when someone tells you they are a vegan, and they almost always tell you that as soon as you meet them, they are telling you their politics.