I’m not a hypochondriac, but I have a very slight tendency to worry about my health, an attitude that causes me to be constantly on my guard. As such, I monitor my diet very closely. I keep up to date with the latest medical discoveries concerning the benefits of steamed broccoli or the advantage of drinking a glass of lukewarm water before going to bed, at least if we respect the golden rule which requires falling asleep twelve minutes later, an unstoppable remedy to avoid succumbing to a nocturnal stroke.
Nothing escapes me, I have an eye for everything. The Nutri-Score is my bible, Yuka, my gospels. As soon as an article appears on the dangers of consuming this or that product, I read it with the avidity of a stock marketer who is promised the martingale to double the value of his shares. Overnight, I may ban avocado from my diet if I ever learn that a University of Wisconsin study concluded that its consumption in subjects suffering from external hemorrhoids and living in the south of the northern hemisphere doubled the risk of succumbing to a heart attack if they ate it the day after a transatlantic flight.
Every day, before going shopping, I consult the list of products highlighted for their dangerousness. This is how I was able to avoid buying a punnet of grated carrots flagged for an abnormal presence of pesticides which could lead to devastating cancer of the arch of the foot. Or a jar of pickles whose vinegar content exceeded the norm, to the point of causing unexpected hair loss.
Science moves so quickly that the other time, despite all my precautions, I was taken by surprise. The heatwave was back, I was thirsty for cold drinks. For all eternity, I knew that plastic bottles should be avoided, at least if you weren’t suicidal. So here I am buying lemon lemonade sold in its glass container. I return home, triumphant. For me the pleasure of tasting a pure soda like a promise of spring.
I put it to refresh, I open my computer, I read the latest news, when I find myself on the verge of starvation: a study by the National Agency for Food Safety (Anses) has just concluded that plastic fragments were more numerous in glass bottles, the fault of their metal cap whose paint would tend to come off to mix better with the liquid.
From fear, I lost the use of one testicle. No, but what world do we live in? Is there just one product that is not harmful to health? When it is not the turn of tap water to be accused of all evils, it is vegetables, eggs, cheeses, meats, almost everything, from hummus to pâté en croute, including cat kibble, which find themselves pilloried.
Going to a supermarket is becoming as dangerous as spending your honeymoon in Tehran or Odessa, if not in Gaza. The simple act of eating is like signing your death warrant. And everything is as it should be. Breathing means clogging your lungs with potentially fatal fine particles. As for dressing, we border on a crime against humanity, since most of our clothes are made in China by workers paid at a slingshot. Even the Uighurs, whose fate has nothing to envy of the slaves of the Roman era.
Everything is broken, corrupted, good to throw in the trash. What we buy to wear, what we eat, what we breathe, nothing escapes it. Living becomes a puzzle where the slightest action taken risks turning, sooner or later, into melodrama. We are dying to rediscover the taste of simple things, natural foods, fresh products. But finding them seems like an obstacle course or requires spending crazy amounts of money.
The world has become so anxious that it will make your brain spin. We worry for nothing, we panic ten times a day as if the end of time was planned for this evening. We are overwhelmed with news as joyful as death announcements. Everything seems to be going to waste, common sense as well as the desire to fraternize with one’s neighbor. And in this great generational slump, one fine morning we learn that a simple bottle of lemonade can transform your stomach into an ideal playground for cancers of all kinds.
At this rate, you will see, even death will soon become carcinogenic!
