food logging the revolution

[keryx]

This is intriguing: [don't read if lists of people's food are painful reading for you] incendiaryfood. I'm torn. The idea is that one logs one's food for a handful of days. Particularly if one is fat. Without changing habits or anything, just reporting.

I have this salmon w[W?]ellington at home that I bought on impulse at the Crap Ukrops that turns out to have an Awesome Seafood Counter Guy (and argggghh, lobsters). And I'd like to write about that, or about the fabulous Greek yogurt, croissant and cherries [in winter!] I had at breakfast. Then I'd also have to report my new thing as of today, where I bring really really good quality junk food (you know, organic chocolate, dried cow that was treated nicely before someone offed it, smooshed fruit) to the office so that I can still eat constantly in an office filled with sugar but not eat crap that makes me feel blechky and uncooperative later.

It's pretty easy to grasp a theme there, the massive class privilege of everything I eat. Even the meatball sub I had at lunch was at the posh Arby's behind Wilderness Office Park. The classism of my food is nothing new, though. Nor is it something I fail to remember on a daily basis; I know I eat privilege. I keep hot women around to make fun of my pink lady apples for just that purpose.

I like the this is what I eat. so? aspect of food logging for no diagnostic or dietary change purpose. If nothing else, just experiencing it exposes you to all the self-flagellation that's right on the tip of practically anyone's tongue when food comes up.

But. Isn't that like my food privilege? Or my weird thing with potatoes? I mean, don't we already know that? I think I'm trying to put it in a context of radical activism, and while there's some of that, it's probably more about analysis and introspection.

Still, I present the project for your reflection. Does it make you think?

Comments

[tupelo.livejournal.com]

Maybe for you, the more incendiary aspect would be owning the privilege. It's not like you haven't already done the fat owning thing in other ways, you know?

Just a thought.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Does owning my privilege where food is concerned mean I have to eat more hot dogs? Cause that just doesn't sound like a good time.

[chubbyninja.livejournal.com]

hmmm... logging what i eat. That could be interesting. If for nothing more than actually keeping track of the amounts of unhealthy crap i pile into this sewage dump i call my body.

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

I've found, as I have been tagging relentlessly all my back entries, that I wrote an awful lot about food over the past 5 years! Reading through it all helped me realize how much enjoyment I get out of food and helped me recognize that part of me in a kind of healthy way. That is entirely from the point of view of self-discovery, and I don't think it has any particular effect on me politically or socially. But someone reading it might have taken it as a "this is what i eat. so?" sort of statement.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

That's awesome. Sounds like a productive way of thinking about food through journalling.

[arovd.livejournal.com]

Today:
"naked" turkey/cheese sandwich from 7-11 with mayo and mustard added
1L bottle of water
candy bar sized package of chew-ets peanut chews (2oz)
apple
1/2 sleeve of saltines
most of a bag of goldfish (6.6 oz)

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Chew-ets are chouttes! :)

[maryjholliday.livejournal.com]

You are echoing things I have heard other friends say about the project--generally friends who have a long history of fat activism or eating disorders. Perhaps it isn't new to all of us, and simply writing down what we eat manages to be jumpy enough without analyzing it further. Not that we shouldn't take things like classism into account...

Separate note: Are there really Posh Arby's??

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Yep. The Arby's near my office has wine and beer at dinner. It's a whole new world of Arby's. I think this is mostly unique to Richmond.

[varsil.livejournal.com]

Logging what you eat tends to reduce food consumption for two reasons:

A) People are less inclined to have a midnight snack or whatever if they have to tell everyone they did.
B) People are less inclined to have a midnight snack if said midnight snack comes with paperwork that needs to be done.

That said, I think that the notion of privilege is the most useless thing society has produced to date (yes, even above the warning labels reading Caution: May Be Hot After Heating, and Cheez Whiz). It's just a form of self-flagellation that lets people assuage their middle-class guilt without accomplishing anything productive. Worrying about privilege is the most bizarre luxury in existence. If all of the effort spent on concerns of privilege was instead spent raising money for good causes, the world would be a happier place.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

These folk aren't trying to eat less, though. They're just eating and writing it down. If it were a diet project, you know I'd be way more obnoxious about it.

I think the function of privilege awareness is as a check on asshattery. If I were, for instance, to assume that everyone else could and should eat like I eat (as I sometimes do), I'd be a privileged jerk for not recognising that not everyone has access to my posh diet. There's a difference between worrying about privilege and just noting it; it's like conceding one's own bias.