Nina In New York: The Foodies Shall Inherit The Earth
A lighthearted look at news, events, culture and everyday life in New York. The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.
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By Nina Pajak
Way to go, western world. Thanks to our proliferation of fast food joints, highly processed ingredients and fatty fat fatness, our crappy diet is now literally poisoning other cultures.
According to a newly published study, as developing nations develop and urbanize, incomes go up and people start making different food choices. They're eating the "Western" way, meaning lots of saturated fats, salt, sugar, and animal products. Not so much with the plants and the fiber. And just generally too much food, period. And we know all too well how this story goes: our privileged diet leads to perks like compromised immunity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and much, much more!
Clearly, we're at least partially responsible for setting the world back on the right course. If our global brands clean up their acts, drain the grease traps and stop adding hot dogs to pizza, perhaps we won't all die of heart attacks before the Earth careens into the sun.
What we all need to do is look to the people with the highest incomes in the Western world: bougie foodies. With their kale and their chia and their superfoods and their smoothies and SO MANY AVOCADOS and bespoke, hand-pulled noodles and their smug insistence on eating offal and game meat and things in various stages of fermentation, it turns out foodies are in pretty good physical shape. Especially compared to people who eat more conservatively or who are more limited in their selections. Of course, people who can afford to treat food like an activity, as opposed to a life-sustaining necessity, also tend to exercise more and have better access to whole foods and high quality produce.
But even still, there are some lessons to be gleaned from our foodie friends. If we and our friends around the world continue to look to them, soon we will all be intestinally regular and turning strange shades of chartreuse from drinking daily green juices. We will be composed primarily of ancient grains, all of which shall be sprouted. The food formerly known as the cheeseburger will be made of a sliver of pork belly which has spent some time in couples therapy with a slice of manchego and absorbed its essence, wrapped in collard greens and served with a spritz of tomato water. The most powerful will be those who perform best at FlyWheel and possess the greatest varieties of heritage root vegetables. Our gut bacteria will be unparalleled! We shall all live forever!
The future is bright, everyone, like a hot pink pitaya bowl.
Nina Pajak is a writer living with her husband, daughter and dog in Queens. Connect with Nina on Twitter!
