Tempting fat: Burger and fries for lunch

I just came back from Reno, where, when no one was looking, I had a cheeseburger with fries at a fast-food stand in a casino.

I made sure there were no lawyers in sight before I ordered. A careful scrutiny of the area revealed only old ladies at the nickel slots and men with sure-fire systems on how to beat the house, losing at the blackjack tables.

Over the years I have become particularly adept at spotting lawyers on the hunt for social issues to attack. The women wear pin-striped pantsuits and have that Erin Brockovich look in their eyes. The men are balding in front and long-haired in the back. Some wear ponytails. The men, not the women.

While in Reno I did a little gambling and a little losing. It was in the middle of a loss that I suddenly had a terrible craving for the kind of food that clogs your arteries, destroys your eyesight, reduces your sexual drive, rots your stomach and causes your outer extremities to wither and die. Fortunately, a fast-food restaurant was nearby.

Under normal circumstances, I would dig right in and chomp away like the slobs in the hamburger commercials, with mustard running down my chin and globs of mayo in my hair. But I was being more circumspect because lawyers and social activists are beginning to zero in on fast food, and I don’t want to be dragged into court as an example of a little fat man ruined by cheeseburgers.

You probably read about that gathering in Boston a couple weeks ago, where the kind of people who salivate at the word “cause” gathered to discuss a preemptive strike on obesity. They weren’t talking about putting signs in the windows of McDonald’s or Burger King to “Please Eat Responsibly”; they were talking about going to court to have the fast-food places and junk-food vendors change their ways.

“I think food is the tobacco of the 21st century,” said one of the attendees quoted in The Times, hinting not only at legal action but at a wave of confrontational activities by vigilantes with nothing better to do. Zealots who slapped cigarettes from the hands of smokers and threw red paint on women wearing fur will soon be jerking the cheeseburgers right out of your mouth and batting away your French fries. It’s the Carrie Nation Syndrome. Next they’ll be chopping up hot dog machines and smearing their owners with pickles and relish.

Sparing you a mess of statistics that connect bad foods with death, I’ll just affirm that a lot of Americans are fat and a lot of them are dying because of obesity. Citing the link between fat and death, lawyers reason that since it’s unlikely that fat people are dying from green beans and carrots, it must be because of too many burgers, tacos, chips, fries and other greasy comestibles.

Even though that pre-food war meeting was held in Boston, you can bet your last Twinkie that the actual war will be fought in California, where we are easily outraged. Cigarette smoking and animal cruelty are among our major issues, but our protests have also included airline peanuts and perfume pollution. Other than campaigning against drunk drivers, social activists have so far left booze alone, because researchers insist that a couple of horns a day might even be good for us. I’ll drink to that.

I felt comfortable eating a cheeseburger in Reno because I was out of the range of California’s activist attorneys. It would be easy for some smart lawyer to subpoena me as an example of someone who eats bad foods and as a result, suffers from poor health. But it’s not because of junk food. OK, just that once in Reno I snuck a burger in defiance of the Boston Mandate, but I generally eat well-balanced meals prepared by a wife who believes that God created salads so that Americans wouldn’t explode.

But it doesn’t matter what shape I’m in or why, or what shape you’re in or why. Very soon now there will be lawsuits demanding ingredient labels for fatty foods, health warnings on ads for fast-food restaurants, and the elimination of junk food commercials that target teenagers and beer-soaked jocks.

The net result of all this will be richer lawyers, crowded court dockets and the creation of a self-righteous conglomerate of angry skinny people who will decide what’s good for us and what isn’t. If you’re a junk-food junkie, it’s best that you stock up now, because before too long, pepperoni pizza, like hummingbird tongues, will be a food of the past. The Grand Army of the Martini will be ready to fight if the food nazis turn in our direction.

In the taunting words of a popular war hero, “Bring ‘em on!”

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Al Martinez’s column runs Mondays and Fridays. He’s at al.martinez@latimes.com.