Despite all the words written, photographs clicked and millions of hours allocated to cooking, eating serves only two purposes for humans: ingesting nutrition and providing a social venue for connecting us with the food we ingest. As I see it, the purposes are inextricably interconnected; both are essential to our well-being.

Virtually everyone over the age of ten knows that adequate nutrients are essential for survival, and our culture and economy (and waistlines) reflect it. What is frightening is how many people unconsciously ignore the other purpose of eating. In sterile environments devoid of social interaction, they eat food that is processed almost beyond recognition and eventually become disconnected from the actual food that provides their sustenance. Have you been inside a fast food chain restaurant lately?

I hadn’t for more than ten years until a week ago when I drove from California to Seattle and passed a succession of McDonald’s, Jack In The Box, Carl Jr., Arby’s, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Dunkin Donuts, Taco Bell, KFC, etc.. I decided to bite the bullet and actually taste the food I so often malign and chose Wendy’s remembering  that freshness and maybe a salad bar were a part of the format. Wrong on both counts.

The interior looked like a mass of formed plastic set on a tile floor:  booths, tables, counters, drink machines, menu signs, “art work,” dispensers, signs and flatware, all plastic. In one booth two women chatted over giant drinks topped with whipped cream-like whatever. In four other booths solitary individuals ate mechanically, staring into space.

Mounted across one side of the room above the counter was the menu board with over thirty options. I stepped up to the uniformed woman and noticed an ID necklace hanging around her neck. Do the five employees not recognize each other or are they required to prove to someone that they actually belong there?

I asked for a chicken BLT burger. Looking beyond me without eye contact the woman said, “It’s a salad.”

“Oh,” I responded, “I thought that a burger with chicken, tomato and bacon burger was a BLT.”

Without changing her expression, she looked up at the menu board and said, “I guess it is. Anything else?” She took my money and announced the order into a microphone.

Within moments another identically clad woman with another name on her badge brought out a bag containing the burger, put it on a tray and also without looking at me monotoned, “ThankyouforeatingatWendy’shaveaniceday.” At least I think that’s what she said.

At the plastic condiment bar, I pulled a napkin out of a dispenser and packaged pepper, a packaged plastic knife and a tiny tub of catsup out of plastic bins. Then I sat down in a plastic booth to eat by myself.

In between the buns were a gold colored triangle shaped piece of chicken, a light pink, very firm tomato slice, shreds of white lettuce and two identical pieces of dark brown meat that I believed had to be bacon.

Not one of the people eating, including me, interacted on any level.

Almost two weeks have passed. I still am haunted by how devoid of social interaction or connection to real food that experience was and how many millions of Americans think that’s all that eating can be.