Saturday, November 26, 2005

Why isn't it a guy thing?

I live in a small, somewhat isolated, right wing kind of town in northern Canada. Organic food has always been hard to come by here, but recently it has been easier to find in common outlets. It’s still expensive.
The goal of eating more organic food is sort of tied to my weight loss goal: more organic means less junk food, means less fat and sugar and empty calories, means weight loss. But I was also motivated by a more general wish to be healthy and by the fact that Christine has food allergies which are less pronounced when we eat organic.
I’ve never been secretive about eating organic food, and I find (and this links back to the conservative northern town thing) that women and men react quite differently when I mention organic food. With women it’s usually curiosity: what got you into that?, where do you buy it?, does it taste ok? With men the reaction is usually a sneer or a derisive comment. Often they confusedly think that organic means vegetarian, and that I live on a diet of tofu and kale.
The media report a lot on women and food and eating disorders. Men have food hang ups too. The big eater syndrome, the large chunk of red meat addiction. It’s interesting that the media (and society too) more readily treat under eating as a disorder than over eating. Men are too often insecure about their “manhood,” whatever that means. And equate big eating with masculinity. And also equate carelessness about food with manliness. Organic eating is usually not “big eating” and it’s not carelessness. You have to go out of your way to pursue it. And that’s not a guy thing, yet.

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