WHY PAPER STRAWS ARE THE HORROR

If someone asks me what I like to do in my free time, I say for the sake of it reading a book, exercising, and traveling, but if I'm honest, it's: eating a lot, drinking, and traveling. Then it's also certain that I let the travel destination depend on the chance of good food and drinks, and so the circle is complete again (and I am rounder by the way).

The equivalent of nails on a chalkboard

For example, you can make me (as a true hipster) happy with a food festival, where I can legitimately taste street food (that's the trendy term for a just too small portion) all day in the name of food. But you can also easily ruin my pleasure by serving me a treat accompanied by a paper straw or wooden cutlery. This is for me the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard or the sound and touch of styrofoam. Do you feel it deep, deep in your fibers, bones, and whatever else you have? That texture, boys and girls, get-the-f***-out-of-here. The shivers run from my hairline to my left sagging sock. I plead purely out of self-interest for paper-straw-and-wooden-cutlery-free festivals.

The mouthfeel

In the higher realms of food and drink, they also speak of ‘the mouthfeel’. Well, the mouthfeel that a wooden spoon gives me is of such rare, unique horror that I would be capable of leaving it. And that says something. Just imagine a delicious soup that you then have to spoon up with wood. Get-the-f***-out-of-here. I can be as happy as a child with a cocktail in the making, but if I detect a paper straw, fifty percent of my cocktail joy disappears. The rest of my happiness doesn't, of course, because it's still a cocktail. But that feeling of that straw in my mouth...

A.S. on G.S.

It even goes so far that I try to position a piece of food on my fork (made of wood) in such a way that my lips or worse: the inside of my mouth do not come into contact with the cutlery in any way. Now you can categorize this under A.S. on G.S., as my mother used to call it (attention-seeking on a large scale), but coincidentally this horrific feeling has been scientifically proven.

I have grima

Scientists talk about a unique emotion, which I can confirm, because aside from a disgusting story, little can ruin my appetite so enormously. There is no translation for it in English and Dutch, which I find a shame, but the Spaniards call it grima. Basically, you get it from scratching nails on a chalkboard, but there are people who experience grima in other situations. I have taken the liberty of attributing this ailment to myself in the case of the paper straw and wooden cutlery.

Then there is only one problem left, because since the whole ocean is going down the drain due to the loads of plastic we produce, I need to find a solution for my grima. So if you happen to see a woman at a food festival busily running from food truck to stall and back to the food truck with a fork from home and a stainless steel straw (yes, they exist), say hello, there's a good chance it's me. Otherwise, the burgers only policy kicks in, alias: eating with your hands.

Text: FavorFlav