Is Food the New Sex?

This is the question raised by Mary Eberstadt, a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, in a Policy Review essay of the same title, which I came across courtesy of the op-ed piece by George Will of the Washington Post.

Remember how fifty years ago, our mothers (or grandmothers, depending on how old you are) would stock their kitchens with things that nutritionists today would not find advisable - things like red meat, dairy products, refined sugars, and so forth? Everything came from the freezer or in jars. The only thing served 'fresh,' would be a potato. What they served was based on what they felt was good to eat, not what everyone else felt we ought to eat.

Nowadays it is considered proper to avoid eating red meat, endangered fish, to stick to 'organic' meat and produce, fresh fruits and vegetables, and avoid sugar in beverages. Abiding by these choices acquires the same moral imperative that was ascribed to sexual abstinence a generation ago.

“The moral poles of sex and food have been reversed," writes Mary. There are as many variants of vegetarianism, “schismatic differences” over what to (not) eat similar to denominational fractiousness over articles of faith, "a level of metaphysical attentiveness” that was once invested in sex. The oral and the sexual drives have always been interchangeable in our myths and in our daily expressions. Remember Eve in the Garden of Eden who offered Adam a taste of her “fruit”?

But the question that Eberstadt poses is that now that it has become possible given the affluence that modern societies possess to indulge in these impulses, why is it that we have become more selective in the food we eat and practically indiscriminate in terms of the sexual intercourse we partake in? Or as George put it, we are “prudes at dinner, gluttons in bed.”

By coincidence, this week, McDonald’s in South Australia was assailed for lifting its prices in stores that catered to less affluent communities (in economic terms, it is an admission that cheeseburgers are “inferior goods” because the demand for them is inversely proportional to household income).

While it could be considered a case for consumer protection against predatory pricing engaged in by a multinational company, comments posted in the local Advertiser newspaper online suggest that there is an equally valid case to be made regarding whether we should be encouraging people to eat at McDonald’s to begin with. Perhaps this “demand-based pricing” as McDonald’s called it, is a mechanism for constricting such demand, with the unintended consequence of reducing the social costs associated with obesity(?).

Leisure, the New Work

The contrast between social mores associated with eating and sexual conduct then and now provides a good template for understanding the transformation of similar beliefs around thriftiness and work.

The stigma once associated with financial profligacy that previous generations suffered seems to have given way to a belief that spending is now virtuous. Where once, it was our moral imperative to work hard, be frugal and stay out of debt, today we are told that it is to borrow, spend and even gamble our way to prosperity.

Where once hard work was imbued with a sense of piety, today it might be spending time at the beach, creating stimulus through holiday economics. The social ills associated with workaholism (?) after all are now laying the basis for our license to “chill” as a society.