Fast food, loose talk

THE GREATEST lie the Devil ever told the world is that he doesn't exist. OK, I'm modifying that quote for my purposes. A lesser-known but more perverse lie uttered by the Devil is this: KFC doh taste good. You hear lie? Dat is lie! KFC is delicious. Anyone who tells you otherwise is in service of the Devil hisself.

Upon the announcement of price increases by national treasure KFC, the online world was inundated with the gospels of fast-food atheists. "Good thing I don't eat dat nah!" "I ain't eat that since I small!" Yep. All those KFC apostates really took a bite out of KFC's fifty-five-million-dollar profit declaration for 2023.

Did I mention KFC is delicious? Don't get me started on their spicy chicken. Nothing cleanses the palate and the colon quite like that piquant preparation!

Kentuckry, like most fast foods, is specifically formulated to hack the primal core of our brains. The unholy triumvirate of salt, fat and sugar is a chemical seduction so powerful it makes men in three-quarter, half-off pants jump the counter when they hear these incendiary words from the cashier: "Chicken frying. It go take tutty minutes."

Ever seen videos of an infant being offered a choice between a broccoli floret and a morsel of fried chicken? Notice how the once mild-mannered suckling turns feral, grabbing at the chicken like the demon possessed? It's the smell; that same smell emanating from grease traps outside of fast-food joints that wafts up our nostrils as we walk past.

Sure, we say to ourselves, "Oh gorsh, what smellin' so?" The next minute you're standing in line at the cashier in front of a hair-netted harpy and you don't even know how you got there.

It's more than taste and primal coding, of course. It's convenience. KFC outlets are ubiquitous, and if you can't go to them they come to you. When you hear that feeble moped horn outside your house from the KFC caped crusader delivering salivatory salvation, your heart skips a beat. That could be a cardiac arrhythmia, but this is no time for a Google diagnosis, Audrey. Your box of dead awaits!

The colonel takes most of the heat in long-running debates about the impact of fast food on our health. It hardly seems fair, given the profusion of fast-food chains across this country. Following the gas boom years, franchises sprouted like mushrooms in manure.

Consequently, there's nothing as quintessentially Trini as chronic diseases. Diabetes and hypertension are major killers. We focus on the lives claimed by chronic ailments but think little of the diminution of quality of life: poor mobility, loss of income, soaring medical expenses, unremitting pain, domestic strife, fatigue and impotence.

Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh recently vented over the omnipotent influence of fast-food franchises. Ostensibly, the purveyors of junk foods and sugary drinks sicken the people who must then go to a broken healthcare system for help. The minister spoke about the impossibility of the State going up against the advertising budgets of the food behemoths.

Still, the paucity of education on the impact of regular fast food consumption is frightening. Folks were asked by reporters about regularly consuming fast food in the context of the minister's concerns. The answers looked something like this: "Yes, I still eating it (KFC). If you can't afford it, leave it there." "I would continue because it is a matter of personal choice."

Ordinary citizens don't even understand what they're being asked. There isn't even an understanding of the "choice" they're making. The problem goes beyond ignorance of lifestyle diseases. It's an indictment of the education system as a whole and the quality of citizens it produces.

Ultimately, people have to take responsibility for their lives and be more moderate in their consumption of sugary, fatty foods. Simply saying it, however, won't make it so.

If encounters with the meat grinder that is our healthcare system aren't enough to dissuade citizens from eating fast food several times per week, then what will?

The war must be waged in our schools. Media houses should have campaigns to encourage citizens to embrace healthier choices, and physical activity, and eschew fealty to fast foods.

Forget this notion of franchises pushing healthier options. You don't go to Mike Tyson for elocution lessons. They're going to do what they do. What's needed is a cohesive public education strategy that brings together the State and civil society groups to win the hearts and health of citizens.