This is the first of what will become many annoying posts.

Hello blogging world!

I'm quite new to you, and I hope we can be friends. I never thought I'd end up writing a blog, but then, I'm just now discovering the things I'm passionate enough to write extensively about. University will do that to you, I suppose.

Anyway. My main purpose for this blog is food. Music and food. Music, food, and anything interesting. Lots of things, I suppose. Mostly food though. Recently I came upon a beautifully written book, "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan, Knight professor at UC Berkeley and all-around awesome man. Throughout this work, he follows, to the best of his ability, the paths of different types of foods and how they end up on our plates. I've wrestled with my weight and food choices for a long time, but this... this book sparked something in me, some passion that I'm just now feeling radiate from my head to the tips of each of my phalanges.

Pollan investigates fast food, big organic, a farm in Virginia, and hunter-gatherer techniques for obtaining a meal. He raises some moral questions, raises some ridiculously good points, and has demonstrated something about our current mode of living by feeling the need to write a book about where your food comes from in the first place. Who ever thought we'd need a book to tell us where food comes from? Food is this vital, critical, beautiful thing in our lives that we need every day. How have we become so incredibly separated from that which we shovel into our mouths? Could YOU tell me where your burger came from, all of the ingredients in your granola bar, what, exactly, xanthan gum is and how it's used, and what is intrinsically 'good' about a Snickers bar?

Thought not. I can't, exactly, either. That's why I'm investigating. You know, I'm 20-ish pounds overweight by my own standards, and I'm sick of counting calories. I'm sick of the sodium intake, the food pyramid guides, the protein/fat/carb balancing act, the food journals, the health websites - it's ridiculous! How is it that this country can be so obsessed with health and STILL have such an obese/overweight/sick population? What a paradox. The health-obsessed, sickly country. I just want to eat with pleasure, dine without stress... experience cuisine and delicious food and know what's going into my body, my temple. Culture is supposed to be adaptive. Cuisines are adaptive. That's why French people can have a croissant and not end up with diabetes. Why is our American food culture killing us - is it even culture anymore if it's detrimental to our health?

So. This brings me to my quest: I am going to figure out where my university gets its food from. I want to know what all we bring in to this institution, from who, and how these people produce food. I want to know how the cafeteria workers and kids working at dining halls and little markets feel, what they know about the food they prepare, day after day. I want to know the ingredients in one of the tortilla wraps at the little deli counter in our student center, or if I could even memorize them.

Of course, this quest will not be easy. Nothing worthwhile ever is in this country, it seems. But I must do it, for me, for my fellow students, for everyone, to bring us back to what has become a mindless thing: eating. First on my list? Tonight at dinner, I'm going to ask at least one of the women working at the dining hall where the meat they're preparing comes from. Let's see what they know.