This friend and my other friends, and my family members, and my partner--all the folks who've called me a food snob--do so because I'm unusually particular about what I put into my body. I prefer my beef to be from cows who've grazed on grass (their natural diet) and not corn-fed in a factory doing the bump with the other cows squished in next to them. I prefer my ice-cream to contain milk, cream, sugar, vanilla, and a dash of salt rather than milk solids, corn syrup, artificial flavor, guar gum, carrageenan, soy lecithin, and maltodextrin. I would rather pay two bucks more for my collards and buy them from a local organic farmer than to buy them from a grocery store to which they've been shipped from 1000 miles away after being grown downstream from the above-mentioned cow factory and sprayed with pesticides. In short, I value knowing where my food comes from --when possible-- and knowing that the practices used to grow or raise it and get it to my table are good for the environment, good for the food itself, and good for me.
Now, if I were a builder, or even a home-buyer, and I told you I'd rather have a house made of brick than one made of asbestos siding, that I'd prefer my foundation to be solid rather than shabby, that I thought the value and livability of the house would improve if the kitchen floor were made of bamboo or tile and not peel and stick linoleum squares, would I be a house snob? Or would I be an astute person with an eye to the future? (Note: Somewhere between two- and three-thousand people, give or take, die yearly of asbestos-related malignant mesothelioma in the U.S. 59 million Americans are obese, and suffer from all the concomitant maladies.)
If you're car shopping and you want a hybrid with great gas mileage and high safety rating over a flimsily built car or a gas guzzler, are you a car snob or smart buyer?
I learned--and continue to learn--a lot of what little I know about good (snobby?) food practices from my friend Michele. (http://amidlifeisis.blogspot.com) She has her own example of a friend who regularly eats boxed frozen meals containing, among other things, the following ingredients: sodium phosphate, whey, citric acid, annatto color, bleached flour, carrageenan, and cheese flavor, but almost would rather die than use toilet paper that "pills." I won't point out the irony around the points of ingress and egress.
My partner is a vegetarian, which I admire and respect. I tried life without meat once and didn't feel so great. She respects that. But it's interesting to me that if she asks whether there's pork in the collards, that's fine. Yet, if I'd rather my dessert not contain fractionated palm kernel oil or high fructose corn syrup, people want to hit me in the face with a pie.
Maybe it's my approach. I admittedly can be obstinate, opinionated, acerbic. But at least I'm not artificially sweetened. Or maybe it's that questioning people's food choices is just too personal, like questioning their sexual practices. I don't know. Either way, I'm probably not going to shut up about it completely.
It's not just that I try to take care of my health. I am fully aware that I could be hit by a car tomorrow or die next week of stress related to my concern over hydrogenated oils. But I do feel better and think better and make better decisions when I take care of my body, when I eat well and exercise. And it's bigger than that; it's about not buying into the practices and prosperity of big agribusiness, which puts small farmers out of business, produces greenhouse gases and bacteriological contamination, and negatively affects human health and the health of the land. And that's just the tip of the melting iceberg. I'd rather not have my potato sprayed with twelve pesticide applications (that's the average number) before I buy it.
Not everyone can afford to make smarter food choices, which is a travesty that I recognize. Hell, I can't really afford it either. But I'd rather buy wild caught fish than have a nice couch, and if you don't believe me stop by my house sometime. We all have our priorities. But the people who really cannot afford to reject the products of big agribusiness in favor of more healthful choices will never be able to if those of us who can afford it just don't bother. I'm lucky to have friends who are great cooks and share my interest in supporting local farmers, if not my adamancy. I hope they think they're lucky to have me, too--their friend the food snob.
