Nonfat-milk drinkers vs. cheese-slathering, bacon-wrapping hordes

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Any lingering guilt over opting for whole milk, instead of nonfat, in that iced vanilla latte might be a little misplaced.

As Robert Ashley writes in Gourmet of what he calls the Gross-Food Movement:

‘The movement seeks to create food concoctions that violate all the rules of healthy eating and gustatory sophistication. Gross foodies compete in a battle to create the most outlandish, gluttonous, artery-destroying food combinations possible: Deep-fried peanut butter. Meatloaf stuffed with macaroni and cheese and wrapped in bacon. Sloppy Joes on Krispy Kreme doughnut buns. And that’s just the simple stuff. ...

‘Something about these creations just grabs your attention—layer upon layer of gluttony in an age when we’re inundated with messages about improving our diets, eating less-processed food, and watching our weight. It’s a middle finger to the Michael Pollan and Alice Waters types, an assertion of the American birthright to consume in deadly quantities. The ‘gross’ in Gross Food, after all, also implies an excessive size.’

-- Tami Dennis