Fast Food Nation

A couple weeks ago we all watched SuperSize Me on DVD. (Did you know there's now an educational version available, with all the naughty bits cut? We watched the original - with the swear words, rectal exams and girlfriend talking about their sex life.) Now I'm following up by reading Fast Food Nation. I don't know. It was interesting and yet not quite what I expected. I already knew all the gross slaughterhouse, feedlot, antibiotics, growth hormones, shit in your food parts. I read Diet for a New America in the late 80's and we were a vegetarian household for many years (but we always allowed wild Pacific salmon). Recently though, dead animals are making their way to our plates again and there's really only one reason: they're a fast, easy to prepare source of protein. And one of my kids won't eat fish.

Oh, I love all the rhetoric; the bemoaning of the fast food mentality, and the processed, and packaged, and aritificially colored and flavoured everything, yadayadayada. But I ask you - who is going to make those 3 meals + 2 snacks a day from scratch? And good vegetarian, healthy cooking requires tons of preparation time. I need a full time stay at home wife to do that for us. One who isn't busy raising the children, homeschooling the children, working from home, keeping track of finances etc etc etc, and preferably one who actually likes cooking.