Food Fight Club

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The first rule of Food Fight Club is: You do not talk about Food Fight Club.

Yet it exists. Nothing like the chaotic cream pie slapstick madness that used to constitute a food fight. No, this one is a real First World Event.

Excuse the cynicism. I've become ambivalent to food over the past few years. It is a necessary evil, nothing more, nothing less. I guess it is because trying to balance ethical food choices with multiple food allergies, and still enjoy the food I eat, does my head in. I can't get it right. As a result, I find myself shutting down where food is concerned. If I never had to eat again, I would be happy. But I have to eat to stay alive.

Don't get me wrong. I am grateful to have food at all. It could be worse. I could live in a place where the only things to eat made me sick as a dog. I watched a documentary called “Tribal Wives” where one woman went to stay for a month with the Hamar of Ethiopia. She couldn't digest the local sorghum bread – it made her violently ill – and it was all they had to eat as the country was in the middle of a severe drought. The chief tribesmen walked for a day or two to find her some honey. It was all he could offer, and even though she wasn't fond of honey, she was so touched and grateful for the effort he'd made to help her. Especially as she had also contracted dysentery.

We are so lucky to be able to choose. The range of food available to us is vast and bountiful. Yet still we gripe and argue about 'good' and 'bad' food. Like nasty little children, we point our fingers and put each others' food choices down. Call each other horrible names then pat ourselves on the back for our superiority in making the 'right' choices. When did food fights get so mean?

No-one goes out and gets honey for anyone. 

Inspired by a prompt from Jill Badonsky in The Muse Is IN Writing Club.