I think sometimes we just invent shit to make ourselves feel better, you know? Like, we gotta believe in something, so we just make it up. And then we convince ourselves it’s REAL. This organic food thing is my personal hell and I swear to god it’s all just... marketing. I'm a chef, right? A good one, I’m not being cocky but I’m damn good. And my clients are, like, SUPER rich. They want the best, they pay for the best, and they expect the whole "farm to table" "regenerative agriculture" "biodynamic" fucking spiel. And I give it to them. Every. Single. Time. It started pretty innocently. I’d just sprinkle in a few buzzwords here and there, you know, "locally sourced" "seasonal produce." Harmless stuff. But then they started ASKING. "Is this biodynamic?" "Is your kale massaged with intention?" I swear to god someone asked me that last one. Massaged kale. With intention. I just smiled, nodded, and said, "Only the finest, ma'am," while thinking, "Lady, this kale came from the same fucking farm as the regular kale, I just said a little prayer over it before I chopped it up." I feel like a fraud sometimes, a total phony. It's like I'm playing a part in this elaborate charade and they're all eating it up – literally. The worst part is I’m actually good at it. The acting, I mean. I can make up a whole backstory for a goddamn carrot now. "This carrot," I'll say, holding it up like it's a newborn baby, "was grown in soil blessed by ancient moon cycles, watered only by dew collected at dawn, and harvested by virgins under a specific alignment of Venus." Okay, maybe not that far, but you get the picture. They eat it up. They actually BELIEVE me. And they pay through the nose for it. Sometimes I just wanna scream, "It's all BULLSHIT!" but then I remember my bills, and my kids, and the fact that this job pays for everything. So I just smile and nod and talk about the "vibrational energy" of their grass-fed lamb. It’s just... exhausting, you know? To live this double life. To pretend to care so deeply about whether the chickens had a happy childhood before they became dinner. I mean, I care about food, obviously, I’m a chef. I care about it tasting good and being healthy. But I don't believe in the magic pixie dust they're all convinced is sprinkled on "organic" produce. Most of the time, it tastes exactly the same. Or worse, because it went bad faster because it wasn’t properly preserved. And then *I* have to apologize for the "natural spoilage." Fucking hell. I just lay here sometimes after the kids are asleep, staring at the ceiling, thinking about all the "clean eating" and "gut health" I spouted all day. And how I truly, in my heart of hearts, think a lot of it is just rich people needing something to obsess over. A way to feel superior, maybe. And I'm just enabling it. I feel like I'm losing myself in this performance. Like the real me, the one who just wants to make delicious food without all the woo-woo attached, is slowly getting buried under a pile of "activated almonds" and "conscious quinoa." And honestly, I don't even know if I'd recognize her anymore.