HOLY FOOD by Darrel D. Miller SMASHWORDS EDITION * * * * * PUBLISHED BY: Darrel D. Miller on Smashwords Holy Food Copyright 2012 by Darrel D. Miller Smashwords Edition License Notes This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work. * * * * * HOLY FOOD I have found my new temple, my place of worship, the center of my universe. It is the natural grocery store known as Whole Foods. Upon walking through those electric doors I am engulfed in an indescribable aroma that makes me declare with glee (or passionately feel): “This place smells like smart people.” or “I bet this is what the NPR studios smell like!” or “Its like a Coffee Shop and a Grocery Store loved each other very much, but couldn’t get pregnant, so they tried fertility treatments, and after ten tries still couldn’t conceive, so they contacted a surrogate, but the surrogate skipped town before the delivery, and so they decided to adopt a baby.” In short I like Whole Foods. If you have never been there it is a magical place that attracts all kinds of people. Rich and the newly poor, fat and skinny, young and old. All of them can be found there, scouring the aisle for food you’ve never heard of before. Or healthy alternatives. In this place the alternatives are called “analogs” because they are similar to but not exactly like the crap you used to eat. For example, if you love the salt ladened mechanically separated then compressed chicken parts we call “lunch meat”, but can’t stand the “chicken” part, you can purchase, at this store for at least 3 dollars more, mechanically separated then compressed tofu. Now you can eat with the confidence that you aren’t slaughtering chickens or yourself. You won’t be able to tell the difference, but your wallet will. That is just one example of the wonders you will behold at Whole Foods. They have an entire aisle dedicated to healthy soda pop. I know, I couldn’t believe it either, until I saw it. These drinks, manufactured with the healthiest of standards do not use that yucky refined sugar that is the blight of the modern world. No no no, in these products they use fancy, hard to get sugars like Agave or Brown Rice Syrup or Natural Cane Juice. You can’t find that shit in crap at Walmart. This is the good stuff, these are the sugars your body wants, and you should give it. They flow into your bloodstream like time release drug capsules prolonging the effectiveness of the product. Then there is the breakfast cereal aisle. Oh my lord the cereal aisle. As a young man my favorite place in any grocery store was this very aisle. If I had a holy land this was it. A place full of flakes, frosting, and fun. Whole Foods has created for me, and no doubt many of its other customers, a sanctuary like no other. Upon walking into that aisle I must restrain myself from taking off my shoes, for this is holy ground. In this place you will find the old favorites, revamped to be health and life giving. Cheerios with none of the sugar. Corn Flakes that have more protein than a steak. Granola that is sweetened by the prayers of Tibetan Monks. However, the holy grail of the cereals that come from this store is not the beautiful and earth friendly packaging, nor the use of ingredients that are organic, nor the lack of cartoon characters that seduce small children into wanting the product. No, as good as these things are, they are not the holy grail, the holy grail of these cereals, the pinnacle of production technology, the power of their innovation, the thing that inspires me to greater heights is the fact that no matter how long they are in milk, they never get soggy. The above must make it obvious that I like pop, cereal, and candy, but these are just the gateway drugs, the real shit is snack foods. Snack foods are cereal that doesn’t require bowl, milk, or spoon. As good as this is though, it cannot compare to my personal kryptonite, although my color is orange, not green, except that one year, for St. Patrick’s day that they turned green upon eating, but I didn’t eat those ones, because that seemed too gross. These puffed corn cheesy fuckers have my number and they call it regularly. You want me to do something I don’t want to do, throw in a bag of Cheetos and I am your bitch. So you can imagine my surprise and delight to find, in the Whole Foods, Cheeto analogs. For only 7.50 a bag I was able to indulge my near, if not full, fetish for those cheesy little bastards. In the snack aisle, below the Caroline’s Baked Carrot Chunks (6.29 for a 1oz bag), to left of Organic Ray’s Kettle Kissed Purple Potato Pieces (9.69 for an 8oz bag) was the Holy Grail of Healthy Snacking: Bunny's Thrice Baked Corn Puffed Cheese Flavored Lumps (1 lump or 2?) As I said, I was in Snack Food Heaven, free from the guilt of shoveling Processed Junk Food through my snack hole. As I consider this Food Heaven, I thanked the Lord for the opportunity to visit such a sacred place. After browsing the aisle, taking in the aromas, and witnessing the site of organic beef cutlets, free range cheeses, and tofu noodles, I felt as if I were coming down from a mountaintop experience the like of which I have rarely experienced. And this Rocky Mountain High was not just because I was in Denver, but because of the sacredness of this store. I cannot tell you of the deep and abiding longing that beats in my soul like a deep resonating drum, to return to that place, to fill the hole in my soul and put one in my wallet. * * * * NOTE TO MY READER Like this, Hate this, or something in between? email me @ dm52082@hotmail.com Look for another essay next week