FoodCrack Confessions

You’d think that because I blog about food I’d have great, maybe even admirable eating habits. If that were only true. As mentioned in a previous post, I have a rather extreme and complicated relationship with food.

Yesterday I forgot to bring my lunch to work. I was famished after teaching three periods. This happens often. There's no kosher food joints anywhere nearby, so I forage for a meal in the local CVS, where the food aisle consists of candy bars from Hell, pistachios, beef jerky, Suzy-Q’s, any kind of chip or pretzel, marshmallows and a bevy of assorted deep-fried obscenities.

It doesn’t take a person long to realize that there is little, if any, respectable food to be bought in the New York City drugstores.

There is, however, tons of FoodCrack.

Yesterday, I cracked out. Hard.

I emerged from the store with a bag containing a box of Fiddle-Faddle, a large bag of Utz Party Mix and one 20oz. blue PowerAde. The Skor bar never even made it into the bag. It was gone by the time I reached the corner.

I ate the Fiddle-Faddle immediately once inside, and was half way through the Party Mix when the party was over. I had hit the bottom. There was nacho cheese on my fingers and tie.

I gave the rest of the bag away to my coworkers who quickly devoured the rest.

Now I’m a FoodCrack pusher as well.

I've been pretty good about this kind of stuff all year so far.

But I think I just fell off the wagon. Again.

Soul Food

We eat good food because we understand the nutrition it provides. We protect our bodies. We seek the maximum energy benefit from the things we eat. When we cook food we allow the ingredients to take full force and we skillfully release the properties of each ingredient at the right time and temperature. This is similar to the way a painter uses paint, or a poet words. An overcooked steak is rendered tasteless and neutered, ravaged by flame, destroyed by heat. This is akin to an overly sentimental poem, ravaged by conceit, destroyed by cliché. We are careful about how we eat and cook in the same way that we are purposeful and deliberate about how we write. We are artists after all.

We know that as certain foods are digested, the properties they release into our bodies affect our physical well being in many ways. This is so basic that it need not be said. I only say it to make a point. One of the mantras of our generation is: I’m spiritual, but not religious.

Fair enough. I applaud this sentiment because it takes courage to say it.

We live in an age of fallen idols; we're tired of the hypocrisy and downright criminal lunacy we seen in many of our clergy and organized religions. While we want no part of it, we still seek meaning. We believe whole heartedly that there is something higher than ourselves, even physical reality. We may even believe in something called a soul.

Does food then have a soul?

I say yes.

If we believe that certain foods nourish us physically, then doesn’t it make sense that certain foods would also be spiritually nourishing? Just as some foods enhance our physical strength, doesn’t it make sense that some foods would also enhance our ability to perceive spirituality? To sense it? To become more spiritually attuned? This is the idea behind the kosher laws, or kashrut. Kosher food is soul food.

Some people say that kashrut is outdated; they say it was merely a way to keep people healthy in an age that was unaware of microbes, refrigeration, and micro-pathology. To me, these people are missing the point entirely. Kashrut maintains not only the physical health of a people, but the spiritual health. Like protein for muscle tissue, kashrut works the same way for the soul, our spiritual antenna, that part of us that is entirely essence.

Everyone knows that pigs are unkosher. Everyone also knows that the flesh of most pigs is teeming with trichina worms, which when ingested, also plague the eater. This, however, is not why they are unkosher.

There are thousands of other animals that are also unkosher: horses, rabbits, bears, rodents, felines, canines, most species of birds, most of what lives in the sea, almost every insect, reptiles. The list goes on. These food sources have sustained and continue to sustain entire civilizations. These foods are not unkosher because they are unhealthy. Ancient peoples knew how to cook food. They had thousands of years of oral tradition that taught them what to eat and how to cook. In a way, they knew more than we do. They didn’t need a religious edict to tell them what to avoid.

Like everything else in the cosmos our food has a physical and spiritual nature. Some foods build up the body, while others break it down. Similarly, some foods dull our spiritual sensibilities while others are catalysts that enhance them. Some foods, as opposed to others, facilitate within us a greater ability to achieve higher consciousness.

Pigs are unkosher because there is something about their essence that is spiritually profane. When eaten, it forms a blockage within us, clogging the soul the way cholesterol clogs the arteries. The essence of pig is so spiritually degraded that even while pigs are alive their flesh is being eaten by worms—like a common corpse, they are spiritually lifeless.

This is not an endorsement for kashrut, nor do I think everyone should follow it. I’m not like that. Those who know me know that about me. However, I will ask a question: If we are spiritual people, how can we eat in ways that enhance this part of us?

How can we, our bodies and souls, all get high together?