Against Corporate Junk Food

Anti Corporate Junk Food

One would have thought that with the arrival of a new computer, half my reasons to rant will disappear. One might also wonder at a person whose main rants are against silicon based objects (pun fully intended). However, and this is a big however, there are always things to rant about. In fact, at some later point, perhaps a blog on the uselessness of ranting, and then maybe another on the therapeutic values of ranting. Anyway, I have something new to howl about. Corporate Junk Food.

There are these companies which provide pretty lousy, mostly unpalatable and sometimes really unhealthy junk food to students/working people/other hurried life forms at medium to unreasonably high prices. Now don't misunderstand me here; I perfectly well understand the reasoning behind grabbing a burger from a MacD and running to class in the morning. People in the US of A are health conscious to the point that if there is a reasonable alternative within a day's drive, they will not eat at a junk food outlet. What completely drives me up the wall is the opposite attitude back home.

True, most Indians want to come to the US and if they do will die happy (why??), and anything 'phoren' carries the stamp of respectability. But MacD's???!!!! I mean, come on people, get a grip. You guys had several thousand recipes going at a time when the only primates on the North American mainland were those on trees. There is no such thing of lasting value in 'American Cuisine'. This is a civilization whose greatest invention is a blinkin' Cola!!! Understand this: food as defined here is something which gives you energy and keeps you going. FOOD as defined back home is an experience!! Think! Lachha parathas! Paper Dosas! Hyderabadi biriyani! Shorshe bata ilish machh! And intelligent Desis think that its 'cool' to hang out at a MacD and eat burgers. This, ladies and gentlemen, in a sentence summarizes the decline and fall of eastern civilization.

My friend Qi was telling me how hip Chinese folk pay big money to go and eat at a MacD, in fact, pay substantially more than the equivalent cost at, say Ann Arbor. I ended up thinking that hip Indian folk (read 'braindead losers with more money to spend than one should reasonably have') do the same. This is just plain sad. With good money in their pockets, these people do not have the good taste (and good sense) to avoid junk food. For these unfortunate nouveau rich fools, a nice Saturday evening out with the wife and kids involves a trip to a MacD where the idiot man of the family shells out big bucks for the privilege of feeding his equally idiotic offspring and wife oily French fries (which are neither French nor fries) and some really shady meat tucked between two slices of not even freshly baked bread.

And why this sudden rant? Well, some git on orkut has just created a community dedicated to a new MacD in Hyderabad!!! The ghost of the Nizam's chef is probably spinning in his grave!