• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, May 4, 2018

The title of the Travel Channel food show “Man V. Food” is not only an apt metaphor for the relationship Americans seem to have with their food, but also for the way in which that relationship is portrayed on so many of our TV food shows.

On TV, food “enjoyment” ranges from gluttony to blood sport. Is this any way to appreciate the bounty and variety in foods that we Americans are so lucky to have?

The impetus for this TV Blog is the sight, almost nightly, of some TV food host or another stuffing some oversized foodstuffs into his mouth (it is almost never a woman), and then praising this overcooked and usually fried restaurant food as the greatest delicacy he has ever eaten.

Then there are the many cooking shows styled as frenzied, breakneck competitions. Why is food preparation and consumption portrayed in these ways on TV? Whatever happened to just having a pleasant meal or learning a thing or two about cooking?

It happens while casually grazing through the cable channels -- specifically the section of channels on our Spectrum lineup here in New York where one finds the Food Network, Cooking Channel and Travel Channel (although these kinds of shows also turn up elsewhere).

These celebrations of overzealous food fetishism are all over the place on TV these days. On the aforementioned “Man V. Food,” for example, gargantuan foods such as the 4.5-pound sandwich pictured above are cause for the kind of rejoicing and ecstasy that are more commonly associated with religious fervor.

On Guy Fieri's long-running Food Network show, “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” Guy is always seen tucking into sandwiches and other dishes whose ingredients are beginning to look the same -- namely, copious amounts of ground seasonings (basically every seasoning these restaurant chefs have on hand) plus tons of butter.

Meanwhile, I'm thinking: Whatever happened to the heart disease and high cholesterol concerns that used to obsess the medical profession?

Before continuing, here is the “disclaimer” portion of this TV Blog: These TV channels and their hosts have every right to produce and present these shows in which those of us watching at home get to go along with them as they travel the country in search of foods they think we will be interested in.

Moreover, none of the shows blatantly advocate that we viewers should do the same things these hosts are doing -- eating foods nine times a day (seemingly) that are bad for us. On the other hand, none of these shows even hint at the possibly unhealthful side effects that might come from a diet heavy in fried restaurant food.

I will even admit to enjoying some of the shows, including “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” and the show called “Carnival Eats” on the Cooking Channel in which an exuberant host, Noah Coppe (who somehow remains thin), visits scores of state fairs and carnivals in search of the most ridiculous deep-fried foods he can sink his teeth into.

However, we all know how influential TV can be, so it might also be presumed that many people who watch these shows are also “rolling out” (as Fieri says at the beginning of his shows) in search of foods that are not good for them if taken in mass quantities (which is also something that some of these shows celebrate).

Obesity now afflicts more than a third of U.S. adults, according to the most recent data. Illnesses related to obesity are also said to cause as many as 300,000 deaths in the U.S. each year, second only to cigarette smoking (480,000 deaths a year), according to various sources.

As we all know, there are no shows on TV in which exuberant hosts travel the country in search of the nation's most unusual tobaccos and tobacco-smoking products, and then celebrate their use. This would not fly.

And yet, TV today is awash with shows in which gluttony -- the very vice that would seem to underpin the obesity epidemic -- is celebrated nightly on multiple TV networks in a nation where obesity is classified as an epidemic by government officials, health experts and the medical profession. Just sayin’.

Putting the health issues aside for a moment, I will also admit to becoming tired of the current crop of restaurant-food sampling shows on TV these days. They all look the same -- or, to put it another way, these food shows are getting stale.