You Gotta Start Somewhere

I've written a little bit previously about what inspired my current writing project. I'd like to fill in a few blanks today. To recap, it's a YA trilogy. Here's my logline:

An unsuspecting teen is drawn into a resistance movement determined to expose a powerful but secretive group that is controlling the public through the food supply.

I guess I should clarify that it is fiction. But the more research I do, the more I wonder if I should also include an 'inspired by true events' line in the front matter of the books. Because it certainly is.

For the past few years, I've been on a processed food intellectual journey of sorts. I started at Curious, then quickly transitioned to Informed. Eventually I got to a level of Angry, which almost immediately morphed into Fury Of A Thousand Suns. Today I guess I would describe my present state as Inspired. Sorta in the same way that a blast furnace inspires coal to become steel.

Here's how I got to now.

Curious

Several years ago, I watched Morgan Spurlock's now-infamous 2004 documentary, Super Size Me. If you haven't seen it, you should (watch here now for free). Spurlock pledged to eat nothing but McDonald's food every day for thirty days. He could order whatever he wanted, as long as he ate each item on the menu at least once. I won't spoil it for you. But let's just say, I found it inspiring.

At the time, I was still a fan of fast food. I knew in my heart that McDonald's made the best french fries. I frequented drive-throughs often enough that I had 'my usual' at Taco Bell (Burrito Supreme Combo), Whataburger (#7 with jalapenos), and Sonic (#1 with jalapenos and tots). And yes, I agree Whataburger has better burgers than Sonic, but until Whataburger goes nationwide, Sonic's tots make them a perfectly acceptable substitute IMO. It's probably no surprise that at that time, I was also 15-20 pounds overweight and on the verge of needing medication to treat high cholesterol.

Super Size Me spelled the end of my McDonald's trips. I mourned their fries, but their other food was always mediocre IMO. My kids had long outgrown the Happy Meals marketing juggernaut. So it wasn't too hard for me to slam that door shut.

Next up, a copy of Skinny Bitch entered my orbit. I found it hilarious in parts, if a little extreme. If animal cruelty is a trigger for you (and if it's not, what the heck is wrong with you?), you have been warned.

Informed

Clearly there was more to this business model than charming old-school marketing strategies like venting fast food kitchens in such a way that the aroma of burger patties and fries lures customers in like grizzlies to a salmon run. In Eric Schlosser's eye-opening Fast Food Nation, I learned much about the industry, not the least of which is that we wouldn't even be able to stomach their mediocre fare, if it weren't for a handful of chemical factories located off the New Jersey turnpike working their asses off to improve the taste of low quality food.

Angry

In Michael Pollan's most excellent The Omnivore's Dilemma, I learned about the political shenanigans in the 1970s that drove thousands of small farmers out of business (and caused more than a few to commit suicide); and the (very obvious in hindsight) link between today's processed food behemoth and the obesity epidemic currently overburdening our health care system.

Can you tell I was building up a head of steam?

Fury of A Thousand Suns

By the time I discovered Michael Moss' Salt Sugar Fat, I was ready to go to war. It is truly despicable the lengths the processed food industry goes to to addict and entrap us into unnatural consumption patterns. From Moss, I learned that many food industry execs migrated from the cigarette industry. Is it any wonder they are all about addiction, and value their bottom line over the health of the consumer? And the hypocritical icing on this very unhealthy cake: I learned many food industry executives will not even consume their own products. Oh, the infuriating irony.

And here we are today, in the midst of a global pandemic that is especially devastating to folks who are already in poor health, perhaps because of poor diet. A poor diet often foisted upon us by greedy corporations more than willing to sacrifice consumer health at the altar of the almighty dollar.

So I crushed my fury into a tiny, tiny ball and compressed all that mad energy into determination to do something about this wretched state of affairs. But what can one person do against an army of corporate and political will?

Not much, I guess. I stopped drinking soda. I stopped eating fast food.

I started writing a book.

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