But first:

Because I was bored and feeling more popular than I really am, I Googled my username last night.  I figured “ErinEph” would pop up a few times because of the blog and maybe the Twitter, but I wasn’t expecting to see my name and what I’d written on other sites.  One of those sites belongs to Sauce Magazine.  For all of my non-St. Louis readers, Sauce is our free monthly food publication.  While the RFT’s Gut Check remains the best food-related column in St. Louis*, I like Sauce because the pieces are well-researched, the opinions don’t necessarily stick to the awful “toasted ravioli is the only St. Louis food that matters” argument, and the photos are beautiful, even in newsprint.

Anyway, Sauce’s online blog as a new(ish) feature called TweetBeat, which features “this week’s best tweets from STL foodies.”  Apparently, someone at Sauce thinks I’m a foodie, enough so that several of my tweets have been used, even though at least two of them have nothing to do with food at all (I’m thinking of the ones re: losing my virginity to my cousin, which never happened because a) gross and b) my cousin is – I’m pretty sure – gay).

Hey, whaddya know…I was looking for the Sauce blog link and found today’s TweetBeat.  One of my tweets from last night was featured, re: my opinion on coconut water (gross, just like losing your virginity to your cousin).

While I don’t write exclusively about food, I find that I mention it quite a bit.  I just…like eating, I guess is all, and I’ve never been able to understand the people who don’t.  Dudes, I know.  There are people out there who don’t like eating.  I’m not talking about the eating disorder people, like those crazy twins on Intervention who followed one another around because neither wanted the other one to take more steps (therefore burning more calories).  I’m talking about the people who take no real joy in food, who only eat because it keeps them alive, and who would feel the same way eating at Le Bernardin as they would about eating at Applebees.  It’s not like I think everyone should worship food (Neil Gaiman’s story Sunbird comes to mind), but there’s something disturbing about someone who eats probably three times a day like a machine.  Food is not pleasurable, it is fuel.  Deposit in mouth, chew, swallow, repeat.  Digest.  What a waste of everything.

But worse than the people who don’t like eating are the people who claim to love eating yet have all these bizarre rules about it.  Vegans, I’m talking to you.  Raw foodists, I would be talking to you except you’re fucking insane.  While I accept that some people have genuine medical issues with some types of foods (my ex-husband was highly allergic to poultry, so if you ever need proof that I’m not a murderer, as much as I disliked him I never used chicken stock in his meals), I suspect that most people who adopt a broad system of rules about their diets are lying.  That’s right, weirdos, you’re lying.  You’re lying to get attention, to get skinny, to get sympathy, and I don’t believe a fucking word you say.

Like, do you know how many people are truly lactose intolerant?  Hardly any.  I know you think you’re lactose intolerant because of that brutal constipation you had after eating half a wheel of Brie when you were drunk on New Year’s, but maybe it wasn’t the lactose.  Maybe it was because you ate half a wheel of fucking cheese.  Or gluten intolerance, that’s another hilarious one.  I admit that some people have gluten sensitivities, but overall, it’s a widely misdiagnosed condition and many people who believe themselves to be gluten intolerant have later learned it was something else entirely; the beginning stages of IBS, for example, or an otherwise poor diet that wasn’t helped by all those grain-heavy snack foods.  And don’t even get me started on everyone who believes Jamie Lee Curtis and her poop yogurt commercials.

People, get over yourselves.  I know you think your issues make you special, but if you’d just cut the crap out of your diets and learn to prepare some real food, I promise you those bullshit problems you’ve invented will go away.

Or don’t, whatever.  Do your thing.  You’re just not invited to my house for dinner.  I can’t live like that. Give me glutens, give me sugar, give me dairy!  I want alcohol, meat, caffeine, and unpasteurized cheese.  I want salt.  Fat.  Sugar.  Anything, really, anything that’s real food with its own flavor.  I want to love what I put into my body.  I want every bite I take to give me pleasure or nutrition.  I want to enjoy what I drink not only because being drunk is awesome, but because I love the way it feels in my mouth.

This doesn’t mean I won’t have to watch my blood pressure when I’m older – being in my family means I’m getting heart disease, cancer, and alcohol-related dementia someday, wheee! – but a few years of cardiac disease at the end of my life is certainly preferable to a lifetime of making pissant dietary demands.

*Gut Check aside, though, the RFT’s food section really sucks.  Especially the “Best Of” issue, which I know is reader-generated, but it’s still terrible and makes me throw the paper across the room in disgust.