by Tim Girton
Ville Voice Eats Correspondent

I just got out of the hospital after dealing with an especially affectionate infection which didn’t seem to want to take a hint. It was finally forcibly removed by the I.V. bouncers, the Antibiotics, and I’m now home to continue my recovery. I’m sure you noticed my absence because there hasn’t been a swine flu update for a while. Anyway, I won’t name the hospital because I’ve been to a couple over the past five years and the following results are exactly the same.

At the hospital while I was dealing with my “guest” (totally not food related, by the way) they let me order my meals from the kitchen with a menu that was called “heart-healthy.” You’ve heard of it: good for your body, a bore for your taste buds. As an emerging foodie, this could be considered a crisis but I tried to look at the positives. After all, I could notice things like texture without the bother of flavor getting in the way. That exercise lasted about 2 bites. My mind was screaming for something that would make it understand that it was food I was eating. If I closed my eyes, my brain could have easily decided I was eating newspaper with a side order of paste.

But that got me thinking, is it the food’s fault? After all, it was simply prepared that way. Are we victims of a fast food culture? Back in the days when we wore animal skins, how much flavor did roasted giraffe really have by 21st century standards? Was boiled mountain goat liver the standard of refined taste?

In the present, our food is sweetened with high fructose corn syrup and salted with mono sodium glutamate. Everyone on the Food Network has their own line of seasonings with spicy powders and signature catch phrases. Bam. But are all those things responsible for spoiling the modern palate? When we eat a steak, are we tasting the meat or is it just a conveyance for the symphony of sauces we can combine on it?

The only real exceptions to the taste free, er, heart healthy diet are fruits and juices. That’s probably only because the dietetic society hasn’t figured out a way to spread blandness to these wonderful flavor savers for anyone succumbing to the orders of a doctor who is “just looking out for you.” Consequently I asked for as much fruit as they would let me have and as much juice as they would let me drink. The side effect of the consumption of all that fruit juice was that, with my I.V. pole by my side, I visited the bathroom more often than normal while doing my business in a water bottle looking container. They track that to make sure my kidneys were working.

Let’s just say they picked up a little overtime last week.