Good Food isn't Decadent

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"Decadent" [dek-uh-duh nt, dih-keyd-nt] has traditionally been defined as, "something, or someone, which is decayed, spoiled, rotten, or sinful."
 

Subject: A bacon cheeseburger | Date: 01/15/2010 | Photographer: Like the Grand Canyon |This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Bizarrely, we've assigned the label to rich delicious food.  I can't watch Food Network with hearing about some tempting morsel being described as decadent.  Every time I hear it, I want reach through the screen and pop Giada's bobble-sized head right off of her neck.

I, for one, don't want my food to be decayed and rotten, kimchi aside.  I'd much rather have fresh tasty food.  So, where does the label come from?  Why do we look at a bacon cheeseburger, for example, and call it decadent?

I think we look at a stack of; beef, cheese, and bacon; see it as a fat & calorie bomb, and think of eating it as being a sin.  Then, we equate good food with sinful food.  Thus, good food becomes decadent.

This is nuts.  There's nothing sinful, or evil, about good food.  It might be a sin to drop $1,000 on a Golden Opulence Sundae topped with 23-carat edible gold leaf, and a dollop of sweet Grande Passion caviar while children are starving a few blocks away.  Yet, that sin has more to do with wasteful greed than the ice cream itself.

Bottom line, unless one is part of a religion with certain dietary restrictions, or has strict orders from a doctor, there's nothing sinful about eating good food.  The fact that we point to food we like and call it evil, or decadent, says WAY more about us than it says about the food.
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