Baltimore Eats - OUR COMMON TABLE - April 2006

Lunch to go... Dinner to go... Even breakfast to go!

"I don't have time to sit down so I'll just grab something on the run." We have all read articles on how what we eat can be detrimental to our body. Maybe it's all refined grains and sugars... or this one's loaded with fat... and another has trans-fats. We chalk it up to our fast paced, overworked lives and eventually just accept it as the way things are.

I read voraciously about food, good nutrition, and the environmental concerns about how our food is grown and how far it has to travel to reach our plates. I'm a member of Slow Food, an organization dedicated to preserving our local food traditions and taking time to celebrate food with family and friends. So you see, even with a boatload of good intentions it is so easy to get sucked into the world of frenzied eating on the run and take out food.

Sometimes, when I could just as easily cook a good wholesome, healthy dinner at home, a case of the"lazys" gets a hold of me. I find myself rooting around the frigadaire and pantry trying to figure out something to prepare with the least amount of effort - but nothing clicks.

Then I figure "Oh hell it's your day off... you deserve to rest... just grab some take out."

The other week the aforementioned scenario occurred and I found myself wandering on Greenmount Avenue where I scouted out a fine-smelling fried chicken take out operation. I did a bit of quick rationalization with myself, weighing the pros and cons of fried chicken, but soothed my conscience with the fact that the operation was a small independent, and I was therefore supporting the local businessperson with my purchase.

After viewing my menu options at the chicken shack I decided on their version of a snack pack. It contained three pieces of blandly seasoned, rather soggy, fried chicken. Thankfully it was a balanced meal: wonder bread-style dinner roll and a totally institutional-full-of-mayo-and-too-sweet coleslaw rounded out with instant mashed potatoes and a dollop of canned chicken gravy.

Now, what's troublesome here (I haven't even started talking about industrial chicken farm production!) was all the waste. The chicken comes in a white, waxed cardboard box with additional sheets of wax paper, a plastic package of hot sauce, six bleached white paper napkins, a styrofoam container for the coleslaw - and yet another container filled with the mashed potatoes.

There were two plastic forks, each individually wrapped in plastic as well. All of this was placed in an oversized white paper bag, which then went into a plastic bag. None of the packaging was recyclable.

After devouring the chicken and coleslaw (I have no shame!) the whole kit-n-caboodle went into the plastic lined trash can under my sink. This can liner would then on Thursday end up riding around in a Baltimore City waste disposal truck to meet its demise.

Now it was a big bag! So much unnecessary waste went to a landfill so that I could have a three-piece dinner pack (all-dark) of bad food. It's a meal that was bad for the environment and bad for my body. And the frightening thing is that I know better!

I can't beat myself up too much because we all do it. It's the system and we're addicted to this industrial feeding frenzy of good food gone bad and needless waste.

I probably won't go to hell for my three-piece dinner pack, but as I ponder my overflowing trash can I can't help but imagine that if we do not collectively get a grip I won't need to worry about going to hell... because we'll all be living in it.

Whoa! Now that's some heavy stuff for just a bite to eat when a fellow's hungry. True - but when I imagine that millions upon millions of people - just like me - are doing the same thing every day, it is a frightening thought.

Me? I'm giving up take out food for Lent - at least it's a start!

For more information on our wasteful ways of living and some things we might do about it, check out a very mind-opening web site: www.culturechange.org - but do so at your own risk. An opened mind is a difficult thing to close! It's like Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker, said,"Nothing is going to change until we stop accepting this dirty rotten system."

So my fellow food lovers, act up... one dinner pack at a time!