Paying Attention to the Wrong Things

How many Americans spend their lives paying attention to the wrong things and to the wrong people? About once a month I’ve explained how celebrity endorsements of various products are mostly misleading, resulting in wasted time and money, sometimes putting people and their families in serious danger. Vaccine-hesitancy is just one small example of this in the present-day news.

This came to mind when the tomatoes I had raised from seeds in the back window and planted in the garden were devastated by the storms of May in the Midwest – no tornados, but enough wind to tear the delicate leaves of the stems. I was forced to buy hardier replacements at the local nursery. On one pot were the words, “FOODIE FRESH,” whatever that means. I began to wonder, where did all this foodie business come from, and why do people pay any attention?

First found in print in 1980, the dictionary definition of a foodie is a person who has an ardent or refined interest in food. 

Surely this is a new phenomenon, unlikely to be driven by some inherited predisposition from ancient times. I can’t imagine our hunter-gatherer ancestors being overly fussy about the food they ate, perhaps complaining that the wild boar from one jungle was more tasty and tender than one from another field. That would have led to quick extinction of the race – or at least of the foodie-oriented genes. No, they were more concerned with survival, a factor that is easily taken for granted today.

More recently, in the Great Depression, or even in most of the second half of the last century, food was not as plentiful as it is today. Foodies were non-existent and those who were considered gourmets usually came from the upper class, the idle rich.

But in this century things have changed. We have a Specialty Food Association, who sponsored the 2012 Culinary Visions Panel Survey, that gave us the following:

• Three-quarters (76 percent) of U.S. adults enjoy talking about new or interesting foods. 53 percent of U.S. adults regularly watch cooking shows. 
• 54 percent of casual diners are considered foodies because of their desire to always or usually try new menu items when going to a restaurant.

Percentages are likely higher today as being considered a foodie has become a status symbol.

Another, more recent source tells: “A study of 2,000 Americans examined the rise of the foodie phenomenon and found that 62% would go to an event just for the food.” And “Seventy-seven percent say food is important when attending any public event.” Perhaps foodie is more closely related to a gourmand, a word that carries in addition to refined or discriminating taste, the “connotations of one who enjoys food in great quantities.”

The simple promotional statement on the side of a plastic tomato pot plus a little research leads to the conclusion that in the middle of a so-called “Obesity Epidemic” advertisers and consumers themselves are glamorizing the idea of an obsession with food, especially more exotic choices. Being a foodie becomes a source of pride, an opportunity to boast of one's discriminating taste and giving the show-off implicit permission to indulge. And any effort to disparage the movement would be considered shaming.

A little more perspective might make people appreciate the true blessing of having regular access to ordinary food, that is, to pay more attention to the right things.