“The ego is a membrane between you and the world”
Drugs, tortillas, and I forget...
Happy Saturday and welcome back to The Crunchwrap!
First Crunch
Here at The Crunchwrap, we’re committed to a brand of bro-ish progressiveness that we hope makes you think about things a little differently. (Remember, for example, our searing takedown of America’s favorite bagel flavor—the benighted and possibly anti-Semitic blueberry bagel?)
Our work here is meant to nudge things along without being insufferable about it. And sometimes we fail. This week, however, we struck pay dirt because there is nothing more bro-ishly progressive than advocating for drug use in the service of mental health.
NOW, The Crunchwrap has not dabbled in all four of the whoa-boy substances — LSD, mescaline, MDMA, and psilocybin (aka mushies) — that make up the basis of “How to Change Your Mind,” Michael Pollan’s new Netflix docu-series about psychedelic therapy. And we’re not advocating for you to pull aside your friend Bernice’s 26-year-old son who wears a lot of Widespread Panic t-shirts and “ask for the 411 about some Molly.” BUT there is growing data about how psychedelics could help a lot of people.
For something quick and dirty about it, here’s a really compelling write-up/interview of Pollan’s new documentary (free article from me) that zooms out on the issue. You could also watch Pollan talk about it and chortle when you realize the lecture is happening on a Google campus. Or you could read his book (I have, it’s good) or watch the series on Netflix (I haven’t…yet).
To bottomline it though, I would just like to posit that in a society inordinately racked by addiction, depression, trauma, PTSD, anxiety, etc., the substances that were once demonized for allegedly producing wastrels and Commies, should be given renewed consideration. There I said it.
Video Break
I’d like to think the Tortilla Slap Challenge is an internet sensation that lives in the same galaxy as a Taco Bell Crunchwrap, given (1) its use of tortillas and (2) the benign inventiveness of the whole thing. Anyway, here’s Kevin Hart and The Rock having some good-natured fun.
Snack of the Week: A Salted Tomato
I know what you’re thinking: What the hot fudge, Adam? Last week, it was a McFlurry and now you’re needlessly affronting with seasonal nutrition?!
I hear you. I’m listening and I’m learning. But for the first thirty-five years of my life, I refused to eat food that had either had tomatoes on it or EVER had a tomato on it. (The Crunchwrap’s mother will confirm this.) A cheeseburger presented with a tomato on it required a new cheeseburger entirely and, as recently as 2015 probably, I would cry until it happened. When my favorite Taco Bell item—the Nachos BellGrande—came with tomatoes that I’d asked to be left off, I’d break out the spork and get to chiseling with Rodin-level craft. HATED THEM.
Turns out, I had only been exposed to very bad tomatoes. So look, it goes against decades of evolutionary impulse for me to suggest that you buy a tomato at the height of the summer season, cut it into slices, salt the slices, and then come back like 10 minutes later to eat them in a salad, sando, or by themselves. But I’m advocating for it now. I think they call this…growth?
Anyway, if you have a food conversion story you’d like me to hear/try, please send it my way. Between psychedelics and heirloom tomatoes, my mind is basically a blank canvas these days.
Nu, What Else?
Diet sodas are totally fine and safe. Thank you Tamar Haspel.
Amy’s Kitchen, which makes organic vegetarian food and markets itself as a virtuous company, closed a plant company in California where workers had been vocal about bad working conditions and had considered unionizing.
Similarly halo-ed brand Chipotle also closed a store in Maine ahead of a union drive. Mmmhmmm.
Friend of The Crunch Jacob Silverman (and his hunky sidekick from The OC) went to El Salvador to report on what happens when a nation embraces bitcoin as legal tender. Very bad things. Please tell Bernice’s son.
That’s it for this week! THANKS as always for reading.
Love,
Adam