As a nerd and compulsive reader, I’ve always been a fan of knowledge. When choosing to know something or not, I choose know it. I’m reevaluating that stance.

Not on everything. I still want to know how to drive a car, operate a gas stove without killing myself, and long division. What I don’t want to know is the history of my food. I’m done hearing about the nauseating conditions of pig farms, toxic levels of mercury in my sushi, and exactly what is inside my hot dog.

I love hot dogs! They’re mouthwatering. They taste like summer, baseball games, and a Saturday afternoon spent grilling out back. Hot dog haters, have you ever tasted a dog fresh off the grill, sizzling with the skin wrinkled and striped black, smothered in ketchup, mustard, and relish? No, I doubt it because if you had you’d never want to know anything about it except how savory the first bite is. You would not want hot dogs ruined by knowing exactly what parts of the pig are in them.

I’ve accepted that I’m going to die eventually. Nothing I do will grant me everlasting life. Because something has to get me in the end, I’m totally ok with it being too many french fries, fungus laden peanuts, or toxic pineapples.

The peanut fungus came up in a discussion with a doctor recently. I mentioned a love of peanuts and his brow creased. He asked in what quantity I ate them? Vast quantities. He frowned. Uh-oh.

Turns out Brazilian peanuts are prone to a fungus that will eat and destroy your liver. Or something to that effect. He was speaking in Portuguese but I could understand something bad enough happens to your liver that he does not eat Brazilian peanuts.

Thankfully, American peanuts do not have this problem, which means my hoard of Whole Foods Peanut Butter is safe.

Jumping on the band wagon of ruining foods Brynn loves, my husband started talking about pineapples. Sliced pineapple is the single greatest frozen yogurt topping. Period. I listened with growing horror as my husband told about a lawyer who works with the local farmers in our state. This lawyer learned the farmers get pineapples to ripen out of season by dousing them with pesticides.

Wonderful. How can you buy local, when your local farmers coat your fruit in poison, not to keep the bugs off, but for the chemical reaction it produces in the fruit?

My husband says pineapples should be ok in season. Should be but maybe not. Maybe some farmer wanted to get his pineapples to market first, so he sped things up with a little chemical enhancement.

This is why I want to remain ignorant about my food. I’m going to go to the gym regularly, drink lots of water, eat sweets in moderation and live as long as that lifestyle lets me. That lifestyle will include hot dogs, peanuts and pineapples and I’m going to savor them in forced ignorant bliss.