Although I’m big on Socrates’ “The unexamined life is not worth living,” when it comes to food these last few years, I’ve been firmly in Thomas Gray’s “ignorance is bliss” camp. All right, not totally but close. For instance, despite a love of bacon, I get the problem with nitrates. However, often when I’m not interested in giving up a food or beverage, I hear “Blah, blah, blah, white sugar” or “The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Diet soda.” Seriously, Tab is my only vice, and I’m sticking with it. (Warning: Committed “foodies” may want to stop reading now.)

However, I’m teaching a writing class themed around food and the rhetoric of food: farm-to-table, food movement, locavore, organic, Frankenfood, sustainability and so on. We’re reading a variety of sources including Wendell Berry’s Bringing It to the Table: On Farming and Food. I chose the theme for several reasons.

First, most everyone can find some aspect of food interesting, which will make for more interesting writing.

Second, what fun is teaching a class in which you don’t learn something yourself. And on that note, my two adult children, the two children that in their younger days ran to plates of white bread sandwiches served by others and upon our return home sighed loudly at the sight of Branola bread sandwiches, of late, those two children have been looking askance at some of my food choices. Really.

All this helps to explain how I ended up in front the dairy section thinking before eight a.m. this morning and then posting to celebrate baby steps. I’d planned a drive-by grocery run, but the dairy section didn’t contain my usual cottage cheese. With a glance, I ruled out the store brand. That left two choices: Simply Cottage Cheese by Kraft or Daisy Cottage Cheese by Daisy.

Looking at the ingredient lists proved a revelation.

⇑⇑⇑ That’s the Simply Cottage Cheese. Seriously, those Kraft people are crafty. In fairness, I must say that compared to the Little Debbie Fancy Cakes that used to be my go-to comfort food, the Kraft ingredient list is simple.

I searched the Web to figure out Vitamin A palmitate and to check out the Daisy brand. You know, the kind of check to make sure that the company is not run by evil scientists out to dominate the world. Then, I brought home the Daisy cottage cheese.

And now I’m hungry.