Monday, October 13, 2008

Trash Food


As we leave church on Sundays, we are always starving and in no mood to cook, make, or cut any food and put it together in any form. So, we usually end up laughing at our lack of self control, and getting food at a local place. This Sunday, I opted for a Chicken Waldorf Salad Sandwhich from The Gypsy Den, and my husband was in the mood for "a really messy lunch." "What is that" you may ask? We don't mean messy as in cheetos where the cheddar sticks to your fingers, or perhaps even an ice cream cone on a hot summer day that drips all over your hands and gets all over your mouth no matter what your age. No we mean "messy" as in full of crap that is not good for your heart,  your arteries, or your life expectancy rate: A Double Cheeseburger and large Dr. Pepper from Jack in the Box.

In my husband's defense, we NEVER eat like that, and even I sometimes crave something that I know I will be unclogging for days. So, that is what he got.

As I ate my chicken sandwhich, I watched him eat his fast food and was fascinated by something that we all do, I'm sure without much thought, and put absolutely no reservations with it, because well, we must figure the very fact we are eating it already has put us on a destructive path:

There are usually multiple items of food in somewhat of a paper bag. However, that bag rips so very easily, and deteriorates so quickly as the grease hits it, can we really be sure it's even paper? I would love to give them the benefit of the doubt that's it's made of recycled corn, but come on, they are open 24hrs with all their neon lights. I doubt that "going-green" is on top of their list.

We usually will remove these items one at a time, mostly because we begin to eat the fries before we reach our destination. So when it's time to sit and eat it, the fries are already, or almost, gone. Therefore we have two decisions: we can either pull out the fries and just polish them off, or pull out the burger and save the fries for later. This is so incredibly odd, as some of us will hesitate the latter because we are afraid that they fries will need to be heated up again. This is a sign that we have fallen for the trap in believing that they were fresh in the first place. Never mind that when they enter into our microwave, that is at least the sixth time of being re-heated.

So say we opt for decision number two, and we pull out the burger and then save the fries for later. We then take the crumpled up burger wrapper with a little left over cheese on it, and place it back into the bag with our other food. Yes, we take our trash and put it all over, around, and on top of our french fries. So much so, that sometimes, because we are in deep conversation, we will pull out our fries and find our balled-up pile of trash resting on top, and often wedged between our french fries. We have no problem with this.

If this food were on a plate and someone handed us a note, we would never read it, dip it in some cheese from whatever we were eating, and then ball it up and place it on our other food. It just would not fly. We would be unsanitary, gross, sick, unhealthy. But somehow we do it with trash fast food all the time and have zero issues.

Oh wait, it's because we are fully confident of where the paper came from, who touched it, and where it in the world it's been before. So no big that it gets all over our food. In fact, why don't we dip the fry in some of the left over cheese, and just squeeze the grease out of the recycled corn bag and re-heat it for a delicious, fresh, batch of french fries. It's like we ordered two kinds: the regular and the trash deluxe.

5 comments:

Kristina P. said...

I do love me some trashy, disgusting fast food, every now and again!

Heather of the EO said...

Yeah, what Kristina P said. I'll admit it. Me too. and I totally do what you wrote about here.

Makes no sense.

Kristina P. said...

Bonnie, I think your blog needs a comment whore button. Come visit my blog! :)

Kristen Howerton said...

You know it's bad when both my kids start yelling "Del Taco! Del Taco!" after church every week.

Ethan said...

ugh, i had Arby's, Chipotle, and Chicken wings in the span of one weekend. Body For Life indeed :(