Tuesday, October 13, 2009

A Word About Flavo(u)r

Those of you who have read me for a while might know that I am on a very silent, lazy, and fruitless campaign to eradicate Monosodium Glutamate from the planet. Let's set aside the fact that MSG causes me and two of my sons to have migraine headaches, and focus instead on a radical concept: that humans don't really need that much flavor [flavour, if you are reading this in English].

For a while now, I've felt as if my taste buds are dead. I think they've been numbed by too much manmade flavor. It doesn't matter that I've stopped using table salt because of my high blood pressure. Or that, because I'm a smoker, I've slaughtered all the senses in my nose and mouth. No, it has to be all the crap they put in (and take out of) our food, and here's why:

One of the best things about living in the country is that you have access to meat. Like, actual livestock that you can take to the meat processor to have cut up and frozen in little packages that in no way resemble a live animal. Recently, we had a hog butchered, and it was my job to let the meat processor know how I wanted my unrecognizable meat packaged. When we got to the sausage, I was asked what kind of seasoning I wanted. I asked, "Does your seasoning have MSG in it?" They had to check, and the answer was yes. So the woman on the phone suggested something radical - "Do you want us to season it with just salt, pepper, and sage?" "YES!!!" I shouted, as if I had just discovered electricity.

So that's what I got. Sausage, flavored with salt, pepper, and sage. And honestly, it's the best sausage I've ever had. And do you know why?

Because it's full of TRANS FAT.