slutburger

I meant to write a post about Padma Lakshmi's now-infamous "slutburger" ad for Hardee's/Carl's Jr. a while back, but somehow the chance to do so when it was still relevant slipped by me. So, I'm gonna do it now instead, when I haven't seen it on the air in weeks and no one cares. Awesome.


Still, here she is:



Anyone besides me want to help her lick barbecue sauce off her ankle now?

I consider my post-ad-watching desire to put my tongue in Padma's burger-filled mouth to be well within the realm of normality. However, it seems plenty of folks would rather call her a sell-out and accuse her of all manner of sexual indiscretion, rather than kiss her. And this, I both do not understand and find rather grotesque.

A few weeks ago, my mom sent me this little blurb about it from my hometown paper. It struck me as one of the most out-of-touch things I've encountered in a bit. First of all, it's author claims the slutburger ad is "the sort of thing you'd expect from a Paris Hilton" but not a "classy beauty" like Padma. Because only girls with porn vids running rampant through the corridors of the internet would dare flash cleavage while eating a burger, right? Certainly no one with goods enough to nab a preeminent novelist the likes of Rushdie would do that, right? Well, why the hell not?!

The blurb from The Tennessean's food blog wants to act like it's all indignant that this woman so often associated with schmancy food would dare lower herself to hawk fast food, but this surface argument that it's author is attempting to make holds absolutely no water. For Exhibit A to that effect, I bring you this behind-the-scenes video in which Padma explains her own personal nostalgia for shitty fast food burgers. And frankly, the idea that Padma Lakshmi, gosling-like goddess of the haute cuisine scene, has a big heart-on for a burger just makes perfect sense to me. I mean, I love labor-intensive, esoteric food as much as the next girl, but really? If you offered me a guacamole cheddar burger from Bobbi's Dairy Dip, a craphole ice-cream stand over on Charlotte in Nashville, I'd be on it so fast you'd think it was made of fuck-me shoes. Even the most committed gourmands among us still get all woody over the occasional junk food indulgence. It's not like that stuff doesn't taste good, even when we've gone to the trouble of refining our palates.

No, the problem with Padma's ad is not that she's eating a fast food burger rather than braised pork cheek on a bed of salsify and Jerusalem artichokes. It's that, as the food blogger says, she has a classy image and yet, in lending her fair countenance to Hardee's/Carls Jr., she's joined the ranks of other sluterific pop-culture-friendly ho-bags like poor Paris. Now, I've defended Paris before. I actually love that carwash fetish-girl burger ad. I think her vampy camera mugging almost makes up for her role as an unenthusiastic cunnilingus receiver in the aforementioned titty flick. She's sexy, she's clearly having fun with her well-heeled harlot image and she owns that ad. So the idea that it would be an insult to Padma to compare her to Paris is, well, insulting to Padma.

In reality, the import behind the rhetoric in that little newspaper post is the underlying assumption is that "classiness" and overt sexuality are incompatible. And to that, I ask, why can't Padma lick sauce from her fingertips and let us marvel at her stellar pecan-colored tits in that push-up bra and not still be a perfectly respectable food snob and ex-wife of a literary supernova? To use the term "tramp" (and mean it derogatorily) to describe Padma just reeks of the kind of advocacy for the compartmentalization of female sexuality that does no sexually comfortable woman any good at all.

Now, this is not to say that other Carl's Jr./Hardee's ads don't play on some problematic traditionally gendered behavioral stereotypes in which dudes become dim-witted, narcissistic cavemen and women become nagging harpies (although hot ones). But no one of either gender fares very well in those ads, and undoubtedly, only dumbasses who send email forwards like this one would think they're funny anyway. See Sarah Haskins' video commentary to that effect below. Haskins makes a worthy point regarding advertisers thinking they're clever in targeting the basest of aspects of culturally prescribed "manliness" and even goes on to demonstrate how Paris has talents for multitasking that exceed the norm:



However, Padma's ad isn't crass or puerile at all. It is, in fact, dreamy and nostalgic. And I continue to feel that her conflating of her sexual charisma with her foodie street cred seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Doing so is, most certainly, in keeping with her career trajectory thus far. I mean, it's not like she got hired on as the host of Top Chef because of her food knowledge. She got hired on because she knows food and because she's startlingly beautiful. (Some among us might argue that Tom Colicchio's smirking blue eyes don't hurt the show much either.) Even long before Top Chef, she put out this book. And if that cover doesn't draw a visual analogy between her body and all the luscious, juicy fruits of the world, I don't know what does.

It's hardly new news that food is sexy. There's also nothing revelatory about the idea that Padma Lakshmi is incredibly genetically blessed. So, saying she can't have her burger and make you want to fuck her too doesn't do much besides advocate the annoying cultural directive that women should lock their libidos in the bedroom and pretend they aren't all fuck-happy in their waking lives. I can't speak for Padma, but I do know that kind of compartmentalization is exhausting for me. And it also smacks of the kind of retrogressive restrictions on the behavior of women that, well, get us nowhere in terms of claiming our sexual personae as our own.

...Which is all just to say, if anyone wants to make me a guacamole cheddar burger with a good, black, crusty layer of carcinogenic char, I'll do my best Padma for you, all sexy-like.

Bugged: Marjorie's PSA against HFCS

According to my informal survey, roughly 80% of Washington, DC's red line Metro drivers pronounce the word "judiciary," as in"Next stop, Judiciary Square!" as "judi-shoo-ary." I've already come to dread that stop on my route. And that's ONLY because the mispronunciation has roughly the same aural effect on me as would chewing aluminum foil. *shudder* I just can't take it.

But this is the least of things bugging me lately.

I don't know if it's a national campaign or not, but perhaps some of you have seen the new television spots advocating for high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)? Truly, I'm galled by the intrusion of these half-truth-filled advertisements into my peaceful television-viewing time. Just to share the joy-- in case all my readers haven't seen them-- I'm going to embed them both here:




Now, do your brains feel as sullied as mine did when I first saw these?

OK, let's parse their claims and see what we come up with.

It's made from corn. True!
Wanna know how it's made from corn? Here's what Michael Pollan, my omnivorous heartthrob, says in The Omnivore's Dilemma:

"I remember an elementary school science experiment in which we were instructed to chew--and chew and chew--a cracker until the slurry of starch turned suddenly sweet on our tongues. the teacher explained that the enzymes in our saliva had broken the long starch molecules into shorter molecules of glucose. Much the same process--it's called 'enzyme hydrolysis'--revolutionized corn refining in the 1940s. as enzymes replaced acids, refiners were able to produce progressively sweeter sweeteners [this is why HFSC is not at all the same thing as Caro corn syrup you can buy in the grocery store-- that stuff is far less refined and therefore less sweet] from corn. Yet none were quite as sweet as sugar (or, to be more precise, sucrose). That threshold wasn't crossed until the late 1960s, when Japanese chemists 'broke the sweetness barrier,' in the words of the Corn Refiners Association's [the lying liars who lie officious lies in the ads you see above] official history of high-fructose corn sweetener. They discovered that an enzyme called glucose isomerase could transform glucose into the much sweeter sugar molecule called fructose. By the 1970s the process of refining corn into fructose had been perfected, and high-fructose corn syrup-- which is a blend of 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose that tastes exactly as sweet as sucrose--came on the market. Today it is the most valuable food product refined from corn, accounting for 530 million bushels every year. (A bushel of corn yields thirty-three pounds of fructose.)

"But if the pipe marked 'HFCS' leads to the fattest spigot at the far end of a corn refinery's bewildering tangle of pipes and valves, it is by no means the only spigot you'll find back there. There are dozens of other 'output streams.' At various points along its way through the mill some portion of the thick white slurry of starch is diverted to another purpose or, in the refiner's jargon, another 'fraction.' The starch itself is capable of being modified into spherical, crystalline, or highly branched molecules, each suitable for a different use: adhesives, coatings, sizings, and plastics for industry; stabilizers, thickeners, gels, and 'viscosity-control agents' for food.

"What remains in the slurry is 'saccharified'--treated with enzymes that turn it into dextrose syrup. A portion of this dextrose is siphoned off for use in corn syrup; other fraction are recruited to become sugars like maltodextrin and maltose. The largest portion of the corn syrup stream is piped into a tank where it is exposed to glucose isomerase enzymes and then passed through ion exchange filters, merging eventually as fructose. Now what's left of the dextrose stream is piped into a fermentation tank, where yeasts and amino acids go to work eating the sugars, in several hours yielding an alcoholic brew. This itself is fractionated into various alcohols, ethanol chief among them, our gas tanks being the ultimate destination of a tenth of the corn crop. The fermented brew can also be refined into a dozen different organic and amino acids for use in food processing or the manufacture of plastic."

So, yes, sure, absolutely. The junk is made from corn. Via a very complicated process that produces an unnerving number of other substances that are in no way edible. That HFCS is only an atom or two different from these other substances-- namely plastic and glue -- gives me pause. I don't know about you guys, though.



It contains no artificial ingredients. True!...kinda.
It is true that HFCS doesn't contain a single solitary artificial ingredient. That's because it is an artificial ingredient unto itself. Artificial ingredients are those things that we might add to food that do not naturally occur. As Mr. Pollan so carefully explained to us in the excerpt above, no how, no way does HFCS occur in nature. Now, of course, by this definition, one could argue that, say, meatloaf or homemade chocolate chip cookies are artificial as they do not occur without the help of human hands. And that's true of course, but if you make meatloaf and chocolate chip cookies at all like I do, you can, at the very least, trace all of your ingredients back to their natural sources without running into handfuls of dubious chemicals and questionable enzyme-y substances in the process. (Mmmmm, isomerase enzymes! Yuh-mmy!) Can't say the same thing for HFSC. It's doesn't need to have Frankenfood added to it when it already is Frankenfood! Therefore, although the TV spot isn't actually espousing an untruth, it's certainly saying something that is very misleading indeed. But then, the ad was devised by the industry that is anathema to public-consciousness-raising-- the one run by people with advanced degrees in marketing, aka., professional liars and manipulators. So, I shouldn't be surprised that there is utter poppycock to be found in such ads, eh?



Like sugar, it's fine in moderation. Not really true at all.
First of all, it's not really all that much like sugar. Now, sugar itself isn't really all that great for you, but a couple tablespoons a day isn't going to make you fat or kill you in the short term. In the long term, well, those couple of tablespoons might contribute to either or both fatness and death (the latter is a particular risk if you are diabetic) but that's neither here nor there in this argument. My point here is that the body doesn't react to HFCS the same way it reacts to sugar. It foments the growth of certain bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract, thus aggravating-- if not outright causing-- diseases like Irritable Bowel Syndrome and other gaseous maladies. Also, your blood absorbs glucose (remember, glucose constitutes 45% of HFCS) much faster than it does sucrose. That means you burn through it faster, making you crash harder once you use up the (empty) calories. And because you burn the calories so quickly, your body doesn't register fullness in the same way that it does if you're eating a merely sugar-sweetened confection. Thus, you are prompted to eat more, making that "in moderation" bit much more difficult. Unless, of course, you are equipped with super-human will power. (Allow me to confess that I, for one, am not.)

And I haven't even mentioned the fact that products that contain HFCS do so in much larger quantities than would constitute "moderation." A serving size of Kool-Aid is about 4 ounces. That's little more than an overflowing Dixie cup. A normal 12-ounce glass of Poison Punch is going to give a 10 year old kid-- who might weigh about half as much as a grown-up-- six times a moderate amount of HFCS. Now, if that same kid just happens to be diabetic, well, HFCS has been shown to cause much more erratic and thunderous spikes in bloodsugars than sucrose does. Hence, that death thing ain't so far off after all. So, HFCS is fine in moderation? Maybe. If only it weren't engineered to help us override our satiation sensors. Oh, and did I mention that there is some evidence that this stuff is actually mildly addictive? (There are so many articles verifying this stance on the internet that I couldn't pick just one to link here (I highly recommend doing your own research. Please. Don't just take my word for all this.)), but the bottom line is that all sugars react within the brain in a slightly addictive capacity-- we're hardwired in such a way that simple-carb seeking is essentially a survival mechanism-- but artificially heightened sweetness is even more addictive than plain sucrose, as might be extracted from cane or beets.) In the end, the very nature of the stuff, coupled with the way it is used in commercially processed foods, makes moderate consumption thereof not particularly feasible. Therefore, minimal, not moderate, intake should be the goal.

And good luck with that. It's in well over 40% of the products found in mainstream grocery stores. Over 40%! Is anyone beginning to see why I think it's worth the money to shop at Trader Joe's and Whole Foods? No Trader Joe's brandname product uses HFCS, to the best of my knowledge. I've been reading their ingredient labels for years-- and sometimes I do find stuff I don't like in there. But I've yet to find any HFCS. And there are items at Whole Foods that contain it, to be sure, but far fewer than what would make up 40% of their inventory. Quality, organic, whole foods are worth the money. They're worth it in the short term, in terms of flavor. And they're worth it in the long term in terms of personal health benefits, as well as reduced impact on the environment. 50 years ago, the average American spend 10% of his or her income on food. Today, we spend closer to 3%, and yet we still bitch and moan about the rising costs of groceries. My priorities are such that I probably do spend closer to 10% of what I net on food... and far less than 10% on things like gas for my car. I realize my lifestyle choices are not possible for everyone. But I also can't help but wonder why spending a significant chunk on a weekly grocery bill was normal in 1955 but is perceived as a luxury now. Something to think about. I'm certainly thinking about it.

By the way, have I mentioned what your liver thinks of HFCS? Yeah, it doesn't like it. If you are a frequent HFCS-user, you might as well be consuming a fifth of Jack every couple of days.

But that's merely tangential. Allow me to return to my PSA:

It has the same calories as sugar. True! But irrelevant.
Equal measurements of refined sucrose and HFCS do, indeed, have an equal number of calories. But I've already discussed how our bodies process and digest those two different calorie sources very differently. Therefore, the comparison isn't really a fair one. And it's not like eating regular ol' white granulated sugar is all that terrific for us in the first damn place.



Now, had I the capital, I would sue this Corn Refiners' Association, the entity behind these spurious advertisements, for as large a portion of their government-subsidy-bloated bank accounts as I could swing. I mean, the real tragedy of these ads is that the majority of people who see them will take them at face value and not bother to look into any of the cornucopia of internet-available research about HFCS. And those folks will continue to poison themselves and their kids with that goopy sludge. And feel vindicated in doing so.

Thanks for the social and public health foresight, CRA! No really. Thanks.

Conflations of Crusades

Many thanks to Cindi for bringing Carol Adams' book The Sexual Politics of Meat to my attention. Judging this book by its cover, surely you can see why it's right up my alley.

In the fact that it focuses on sexuality in the marketing of animal food products, I'm quite interested in Adams' thesis. In the fact that it draws a connection between eating and fucking, well, this is not new news and I'm unimpressed. After all, both action verbs tend to dangle from the handle of the Bodily Delights Umbrella, right? In and of itself, though, this connection is juicy and complex and well worth exploring. The notion that the eating of meat is macho and associated with driving big (non-renewable resource consuming) vehicles and other manly activities, while the meat itself is depicted as female and consumable is an important, though obvious, revelation.

But it seems Adams is putting her observations of that relationship in a slightly paleolithic feminist context. I have also grown tired of the concept of "objectification of the female." I mean, I do not feel victimized by a picture of a pig with eyelashes and I'm sick to death of this model of feminism in which every little thing is supposed to creep under the skin of all of womankind. It's coming out of an oversensitive mindset and it's--here's that word again--disempowering. This is kiddie-pool feminism. Surely, by now, we've established a thick enough skin such that a chicken breast joke isn't gonna send us straight into litigation. And surely, by now, we've stopped being appalled that men look at women and sometimes find their outward presentation to be attractive.

Beyond that, it appears Adams has delved into a line of thinking about a dubious concept called "speciesism." While I certainly do not think animals should be abused prior to their journeying down the path to the grocery store, but this notion that animals are somehow oppressed simply because humans eat them? That's taking it a little farther than I want to go. I mean, we're sitting at the top of the food chain for a reason, folks. We're smarter than they are and they don't stand a chance against us. And after all, the human animal is an omnivorous one by design.

In my MFA manuscript, there's a series of poems about proximity to the food chain. The closest most of us get to the food chain is going to Fuddrucker's, where you get to pick your slab of beef yourself (is this still the case? I haven't actually been to a Fuddrucker's in MANY years.). But when I was a kid living in West Tennessee, I got to see, first hand, a couple animal slaughters. My dad got a wild hair to drain the biggest lake, full of catfish, on our farm once. My parents both helped out with a neighbor's pig slaughter once. We've got some amusing pictures of my Chicago Jew dad and a decapitated pig head (I'm so not kidding!). And then there was Dinky, the cow we raised, who tasted just awful. The thing is, I know that it can be done in a manner that provides a great deal of both food and profit and also does not mistreat the animals prior to or during the slaughter because I saw it-- though, to be fair, I saw it all before the age of 9, so my memories might be a touch hazy. I do not eat meat, not because I think eating meat is cruel to animals. It doesn't have to be cruel at all.

There are two primary reasons why I've stopped eating meat. Firstly, digesting animal products is difficult for even a well-functioning human body-- more difficult, anyway, than digesting all the roughage, legumes, fruits, nuts and berries that I do eat. Secondly, the more I learn about the environmental impact of animal agriculture, the less I want to contribute to that system. So, what I'm saying here is, aren't there enough reasons for us to cut back on our animal consumption without having to resort to manipulative, heartstring-tugging notions that allot the ideas of cow- and pig-sentience more credence than they are due?

So, here, I've done something truly reprehensible-- I've torn apart a book, basing my arguments solely on what I gleaned from its website, rather than actually reading the book. To be fair, I don't actually disagree with very many of Adams' arguments-- it's just that the ones with which I do take issue really just stick in my craw. And to continue to be fair, I've zeroed in on some rather small points in her thesis, on the grounds that her overriding sentiment is both valid and sympathetic. I mean, really, what she's getting at is that food marketing is one prominent, fringed rhizoid on the root of all evil. And there's not much with which I can argue there.