Food is killing me softly

Over the past few months there have been a million food recalls. Late in the summer, Cadbury recalled all of their chocolate candy bars (much to my chagrin) because they were somehow contaminated with salmonella. And let’s not forget Bird Flu—that horrible disease that caused millions of innocent birds to be killed and absolutely no one wanted to eat chicken. Even black people wouldn’t eat the stuff! And when black people won’t eat chicken, you know there’s a problem. But I digress…

In the past few weeks alone, there have been major recalls on everything from spinach, beef and even carrot juice because of everything from Ecoli to Botulism. Food recalls always make me nervous because I always think I’m going to end up being the sad girl profiled on 20/20; the one that can no longer blink her eyes because she ate a fistful of grapes that were contaminated by some rare virus that doesn’t even have a name yet. Just like Lou Gehrig, the disease would be named after me because I was the first person to bring it to the public’s eye.

Cocoflusia [koh-koh-floo-zhuh]: noun. A rare strain of influenza found in fruits and vegetables that have a purple hue; characterized by fever, coughing, depression and paralysis of the eyelids. Mainly found in Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Brooklyn. Not always fatal, but will certainly f*ck up your life.

So of course when the recalls started I switched to a different brand of chocolate, eased up on my chicken consumption, just said no to spinach and stayed away from juice entirely (unless it was Kool-aid. God I love Kool-aid!)

The Bird Flu scare is long gone, but now there are all sorts of recalls on beef. To make it even worse, I saw an old episode of Oprah last week and she said that while it only takes up to 12 hours for most fruits and vegetables to digest and leave your system, it takes steak up to 48 hours. During those 48 hours, the meat is rotting away in your system until you finally make your way to the pot. How gross is that! I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m scared to death. If I make one false move I could end up like the poor Canadians who were just trying to get their daily dose of vitamins! In the words of my old microbiology professor Dr. Bhattachargee, “the next time you order your eggs sunny-side up, just order your eggs with a side of salmonella!!!! (smack the table for emphasis).” Well said Dr. B, well said!

I now overcook my food until there is no trace of bacteria, color, taste or even recognizability. I steer clear of any food that has been grown in the ground. I won’t eat any food that used to live and breath. I’m even tempted to put a few drops of Purell in my morning coffee just to be on the safe side. So basically, I’m anorexic. Anything that I eat has the potential to kill me so now I’m forced to drink bottled water and overdose on vitamins until I end up looking the like the white daughter of a black man. On second thought, pass me a burger and a family size bag of Teddy Grahams!