Pretty Worked Up: "Unhealthy People Obsessed by the Idea of Eating Healthy"

I started Omnivore's Dilemma the summer before my senior year when I first became a vegetarian. I wasn't impressed. I wanted to hear about meat and factory farming, animal abuse, chicken nuggets, PETA, locally raised hogs. I felt empowered, and I didn't want to hear about corn. I think I got through the introduction, unfazed, and set it on my mom's beside table so she could read it for book club.

And honestly, I'm kind of glad I didn't get through Omnivore two years ago. I would have been FREAKED OUT. I was also much more trusting and idealistic then. I think if I had read about how much corn we’re ignorantly consuming on a daily basis, I would have taken drastic measures to avoid feeling forced into dietary illiteracy.

In my Sex and Sexuality class, we've been talking about the power of one's identity. The concept that what an individual chooses to label themselves can be used strategically is a relatively new one to me. An identity puts you into a category, it gets you into a group but it also distances you from other groups. While one’s sexuality can align people together, I think an individuals position on food can be just as strategic.

As a ‘vegetarian,’ I’m aligning myself with 7.3 million Americans, only 3.2 percent of the country. But by doing so, I’m also alienating myself from many of my friends, family and country. I know that sounds slightly melodramatic, but from my standpoint, it’s true. By going to my family’s Easter party and refusing to eat my grandmother’s ham, it’s really not just about me. It’s about my aunts asking if I want some of their potatoes because my plate looks so vegetable-y, it’s about my grandmother asking me several times if I would’ve eaten salmon if she had made that instead, it’s about being questioned if I still like the smell of ham while in my head I’m thinking “omygoodness-I-haven’t-smelled-ham-in-so-long-Hannah-you-never-even-liked-ham-it-won’t-taste-good-UGH-but-it-just-smells-so-good!” and then politely declining and say “Sorry, no. The honey on the ham smells good but not the ham.”

I say I’m a vegetarian, but my vegetarianism is more complex than avoiding meat. It also gives me a strategy to fight for the inherently moral food issues I believe in. After reading this first section of Omnivore, its scary to think about how Americans’ identity as eater/consumers has alienated us from the rest of the world.

I want to be French! I never want to eat a Twinkie again! I’ll stick to vegetarianism until factory farming is abolished or I find a way to afford sustainable meat! But at this point, it just seems so far out of our reach. It seems like the rest of this book will be Pollan letting us feel guilty, embarrassed about how we eat, and how it determines our entire identity. I’m a little scared to go on, but I think, in the case of our stomachs, ignorance is definitely not bliss.