Eat for Health

Today’s Saturday Short is “Eat for Health,” part of the Deathmarch to Fun series. It’s the story of Ralph who has an extremely annoying voice.

Our tale begins with Ralph calling his mother to ask if he can have dinner at his friends’ house. Mom, thrilled that she can spend one evening without having to listen to his shrill unpleasantness, gladly agrees. The narrator jumps in to tell us that the reason we all enjoy having dinner at our friends’ house is because eating with others is FUN!

Ralph’s friends Frank and Judy Scott agree with the narrator. Mealtime is lots of FUN! but Ralph isn’t so sure. When Mrs. Scott asks if Ralph would like some peas he shrieks “Gee, Mrs. Scott, I don’t like peas.”

“Well that’s too bad,” Mrs. Scott says. “You rude little brat,” she doesn’t say.

Ralph grudgingly accepts a baked potato instead. Frank gives himself a milk mustache and asks Ralph if he remembers the picture they saw at school with the hand and the five food groups. Ralph tells him that was just schoolwork as he picks at his potato.

The next day is Saturday. Frank and Judy come by to see if Ralph can go skating with them. Ralph comes downstairs in his robe trying to look like he’s been on a three-day bender and says he can’t go skating because he’s too tired from picking at his meal last night. “That’s too bad,” Frank and Judy say as they leave to find someone more fun.

They truly are their mother’s children.

Ralph goes back to his room and has a vision of the picture of the hand and the five food groups. The five groups are: fruit, vegetables, meat and eggs, milk and cheese, and bread and butter. Wait, butter is a food group? No wonder heart attacks were so common.

Bread and butter remind Ralph of Kenneth, a boy in his class, because those are “energy foods” and Kenneth is very energetic. We see Kenneth aggressively buttering a slice of bread before he stuffs it in his mouth. Energetic or hasn’t had anything to eat today? You decide.

Milk and cheese remind Ralph of the tallest children in his class because dairy helps you grow. The narrator once again claims that milk is “the most perfect food there is.” Narrator, do we really need to have this conversation again? Need I pull out the Ace Ventura clip to remind you why one does not give milk to the lactose intolerant? Or should I just drink the quart of milk you claim everyone needs and give you an object lesson? If I have to suffer, so will you. So. Will. You.

Who am I kidding? The narrator isn’t listening to me. He’s telling Ralph that the reason why Linda has such a “bright smile” is from all the milk she drinks.

Meat and eggs remind Ralph of George, the “huskiest” and strongest boy in class. We cut to George sawing into a steak. Or maybe that’s shoe leather. Hard to tell in a black and white film. We then switch to close-ups of various types of meat before the narrator tells us all the different ways to cook an egg.

Now on to vegetables. Ralph thinks of several children in his class, one for each vegetable. There are so many types of vegetables: potatoes, green and yellow vegetables, broccoli, cabbage, string beans, “sparagus”, lettuce, etc. etc. etc. Please note that vegetables include the shiniest carrots in the world. Are those real or glass? They can’t be real. Doesn’t matter because they remind Ralph of Wendy, the prettiest girl in class.

Finally we reach fruit. There are two kinds, the narrator tells us: vitamin C-rich fruits and dessert fruits. We see a child laughing hysterically as she drinks her orange juice because it’s just so much FUN! The narrator tells us that vitamin C fruits also include tomatoes and raw cabbage.

Wait a minute, you just said cabbage was in the vegetable category. How can it be both? Stop messing with our heads, narrator! We all know cabbage is a vegetable. It meets none of the requirements to be a fruit, either culinarily or botanically. Shenanigans!

Dessert fruits are things like apples, peaches, grapes, plums, and bananas. Also nuts. NUTS ARE NOT A FRUIT. YOUR NUTRITIONAL ADVICE IS SUSPECT, NARRATOR.

Ralph, meanwhile, has had A Revelation. He realizes that the children he’s been dreaming about eat from all the food groups, not just the one he associates with them. Hungry from thinking about food all morning, he goes for a candy bar in his drawer but he pauses. He counts his fingers. There’s no finger for sweets. He can only eat foods that he can count on his fingers. He can’t make up new categories. It’s just not done!

Ralph begins to try different kinds of food without being shrill and annoying about it. At night he would sit up counting all the foods he ate on his fingers to make sure they fit into the proper categories. After a month or two, Ralph discovered that eating was FUN! because he was well on his way to developing OCD and/or an eating disorder. Which, according to the narrator, can also be FUN! Detrimental to your long-term health, but who cares, it’s FUN!