Food For Thought

Talk about rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. My son, like many of his friends, is now a vegan. He believes that everything is contaminated by chemicals and you have to eat local so the Earth will survive and it's bad karma to eat animals and-- you name it, he thinks it. That's his generation, God bless them, and they believe that their personal food choices will impact the planet. Okay, fine-- don't eat meat or pizza or cupcakes or sugar or whatever, but I would like to point out that Iran is cooking up some nuclear weapons and North Korea is run by a madman or at least the son of one,  and that Japanese nuclear accident was worse than they thought and the Taliban is back, baby, and Syria and Israel and Afghanistan and Mexican drug lords and South African pirates....does it really matter if you have a doughnut with your fair-trade coffee?

As his mother, I am proud and grateful that he has such a strong moral backbone, strong enough to turn his back on the Milanos and Ben & Jerry's and Pizza Pockets and Cup O' Noodles of his misspent youth. But I am mystified as to why there are political overtones to his food choices. Then again, these days there are political overtones to everything. You can't buy a car or go on a trip or see a movie or read a newspaper without sparking a political argument--forget saying out loud that you hate Rick Santorum or love Barack Obama. It's nuts out there. Many Americans, comfortably settled on this little plot of land, have lost sight of the fact that it's all one sandbox, and lots of the other people in it are totally and completely out of their minds. So I will eat the pizza, when it's good, and have a piece of the key lime pie at Grill 233, it is fabulous! Because you never know.