Good fruit

I’ve been eating pomegranates lately. They are probably the most interesting fruit I’ve ever seen — and seem created for the express enjoyment of man; to get at the seeds, glistening ruby-firm in honeycomb packed rows, one needs an opposable thumb. One must peel the membranes back, and, bit by bit, glean the fruit from its surrounding packaging, turned in on itself like a maze, like a womb. The vitamin-rich bubble of juice and fiber explodes between the teeth, and the inner seed crunches, nut-like. This is delightful to the palate and good for the body: protein, antioxidants, linolenic acid. And yet it is relatively easy to prepare: you peel it. In the right locales, peasants can pluck these off trees.

Man, being the arrogant animal that he is, would rather toast his own genius by filling his belly with Twinkies. Twinkies contain so many things that man, trying to improve on nature, invented to save time and money: shortening, enriched white flour, modified corn starch, high fructose corn syrup. Wrapped in plastic for freshness. These, too, you can peel, and peasants can purchase them at gas stations. This is why the peasants, in America, are prone to diabetes.