Jessica Amason - This Is Why Youre Fat: Where Dreams Become Heart Attacks

Where Dreams Become Heart Attacks I am not fat. Yes, I have cellulite. Yes, my thighs jiggle. Yes, I have love handles. But by todays ample standards, I am not fat. This is not for lack of trying.

I have fried banana bread in butter and eaten it. One trip to Ben & Jerrys saw me get a waffle cone with three scoops of ice cream and, because it was there, a brownie on top of it. Bacon is not a breakfast side dish so much as it is breakfast, and Ive been known to save the grease to cook or bake with later. Ive even improved on the low-calorie blandness of popcorn by popping it in said grease. Thanks to a Price Club membership, my freezer is full of ice cream bars, mini quiches, and meat. Lots and lots of meat.

This is all my right as a Wisconsin native, a state that once led the nation in obesity, but has since fallen to an embarrassing number twenty-five. It is also my right as someone who worked at the Illinois State Fair for twelve years and, while there, ate more fried and stick-based foods than anyone should consume in a lifetime. With this pedigree, you would think I had seen it all, foodwise. I thought I had seen it all. This Is Why Youre Fat quickly dissuaded me of that notion. Day after day after day, Jessica and Richard posted new images of edibles that left grease marks from inside the screen.

Some of the items were simply novelty-size versions of existing snacks, some were meat-and cheese-based, some were fried. All of them sent a shudder through my body. All of them made me question the existence of God. At a certain point, I had to hold my head in dismay and scream to an uncaring universe, Why?! As a nation, we could have stopped at breakfast-sausage links wrapped in pancakes, aka pigs in a blanket, and been plenty satisfied. We had it all right there; a perfect vehicle for delivering meat, salt, starches, and syrup to the mouth, along with the forbidden thrill of Foodstuffs That Should Not Be Combined. But we kept right on going, and This Is Why Youre Fat shows us the evidence, allowing us to wallow in the pornographic temptation without actually consuming anything wed regret in the morning and, for that matter, for the rest of our lives.

Like youd ever be tempted. You have it under control. You have ironic distance from this cholesterol parade. I dare you to gaze upon the Krispy Kreme Bacon Cheddar Cheeseburger. Id list the ingredients, except I already did. Theres not a component that makes up one of these caloric masterpieces that doesnt glisten with sugar glaze or grease.

Its revolting. Its disgusting. As a savvy and sophisticated Internet user, you should be appalled by the thought that such a thing exists. You should laugh at the poor rube who would even come up with such a thing, let alone follow through with the idea and serve it to another human being. For some reason, you dont. On a second look at the picture, the cheese looks nearly perfectly melted.

The bacon peeks out seductively from beneath the top of the donut. How clever to use a donut instead of a bun! Clever?! Where did that come from? Surely you dont admire this sort of culinary behavior. Like Pete Townshend, youre just looking at these pictures for research! Soon enough, you find yourself craving whats in that picture. And just like any good pornography, you feel guilty for wanting it. Try to get it out of your head. Sure, youll see things that are just plain revolting (for me, its anything with a fried egg on top), but youre just as likely to land on something you find just as appealing and, before you know it, youll be running out the door to the nearest convenience store to gorge on anything spinning in a heated rack.

Before you start reading this book, go get yourself a sack of rice cakes and a bottle of seltzer. Youll stave off any hunger pangs you experience and feel better about yourself for pretending to enjoy such a sensible, low-calorie snack. Now if youll excuse me, I have to run about seven hundred miles. Joe Garden
Features Editor
The Onion

F ood was once the providence of celebrated chefs and critical connoisseurs. Cooking shows featured all gourmet creations and websites displayed artfully photographed delights. Then something changed.

Perhaps it was the desensitizing of Web culture or perhaps it was a cry for help from the food-loving public. But by Godthere came a day when fancy vegetable towers came crashing down and fifty-dollar mushrooms were no longer acceptable. We wanted to see the old standbys, the carnival foods of our childhoods: the sticky mess of a deep-fried candy bar, the indulgence of a greasy burger with all the fixins. And the bacon! Oh, the bacon! It was the birth of the nasty-food Web trend. And it was delicious. This Is Why Youre Fat is an ode to this trendwhether seen as a commentary on North American dietary habits or a celebration of the deliciously badwere devoted to the worlds obsession with over-the-top food.

If youre wondering whether This Is Why Youre Fat functions as a warning or a menu, we like to think of it as a finger-wagging and high five in one. The point is simple: This Is Why Youre Fat is where gusto meets gastronomy. The world cooked, we blogged. Jessica Amason
March 2009

Recipe by Alie Ward and Georgia Hardstark 1 bottle vanilla vodka 1 large McDonalds chocolate milk shake 1 container McDonalds barbecue sauce 2 Chicken McNuggets Mix 3 to 4 shots of vanilla vodka in the McDonalds chocolate milk shake. Rim each martini glass with McDonalds barbecue sauce and pour the milk shake and vodka mixture into the glass.

Pieces of pork fat, meat, and skin, twice deep-fried. LOCAL FAVE! Bayou Boudin & Cracklin Breaux Bridge, LA

LOCAL FAVE! House of Georgie Ottawa, Canada