Investigators recently discovered another victim of food police brutality: happiness. A survey released by the Pew Research Center today found that the percentage of Americans who truly enjoy eating has dropped considerably since 1989, from 48 percent then to 39 percent today. That may not seem like much, until you consider that such a drop represents 25 million Americans — all of whom eat, presumably.
While we’re sure that a combination of cultural factors produced this sad trend, the bullhorn of the food police has been particularly loud in denouncing the pleasure of eating. We have to hand it to the killjoys at groups like the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI): They’re succeeding at actually killing joy. The Pew survey results shouldn’t come as a big surprise, considering the years of hysterical warnings like “Just know that you’re going to kill yourself” (in regards to ice cream) from top CSPI food cop Michael Jacobson and his ilk. As Jacobson has put it, “CSPI is proud about finding something wrong with practically everything.”
The late, beloved chef Julia Child would be aghast to see this success of the food police, those whom she said “see no beauty in food.” Child foresaw this threat well, telling the Associated Press in 1989 that in a world dominated by the food police, “[s]itting down to dinner is a trap, not something to enjoy.”
