Explication of The Health-Food Diner by Maya Angelou

     The poem, The Health-Food Diner, by Maya Angelou, is a satire aimed at the people who take eating healthily much too seriously. Maya Angelou was raised in a time where you ate whatever was put on the table and you would never complain. The health food trend is a finicky and scrupulous way of living that Angelou criticizes. She gives the examples of the typical foods that make up a diet, "sprouted wheat and soya shoots/And brussels in a cake/Carrot straw and spinach raw" (1-3), and quickly puts in her two cents, "Today, I need a steak" (4). Maya Angelou's repetition of different types of meat truly enforce her carnivorous nature. She convinces the reader that the healthy diet and lifestyle are not for her. She describes the people invested in the healthy eating movement as "thinned by anxious zeal" (10), believing there is no way they could be happy while being so cautious about the daily amount of calories they are consuming. There is an unusual rhyme scheme in The Health-Food Diner but the rhyme gives the poem a playfully mocking tone and lets the reader know that Maya Angelou does not take herself so seriously all the time.