Conspicuous Consumption

Number 347 in the list of why I am glad we do not live in a large city. From the Washington Post:

Eat Your Karats
Festive Gold Garnishes Are This Season's Flash in the Pan

It's the holiday season, and so for the festive yuletide table, hosts in the know are considering the noble metals this year. The latest food trend: edible gold and silver.

You can eat your bling. With gold selling for more than $500 an ounce, that's conspicuous consumption.

Understandably, you have questions. Though well documented in the chronicles of medieval feasting ritual (along with the consumption of tiny songbirds and rotten fruits), eating precious metals is a new concept for many a modern merrymaker.

More:

The shavings are served in and on chocolates, cocktails, coffees, pastries, soups, salads and even entrees, like riso oro e zafferano , a gold and saffron risotto. Some chefs like to swaddle a whole chicken with gold leaf -- and eat with relish both foil and fowl. Silver is also big on finger foods. When one thinks of sushi, one can now think metallic shavings on raw mackerel. There is a gourmet who enjoys gilding lobsters, and why not? The celebrity chef Jeffrey Jake of the Lodge at Pebble Beach has created entire menus using gold and silver flecked on the high-end items like abalone, foie gras and truffles for those posh jet-setters who have seen all, done all. "Diners," Jake says, "are expecting more wow now than ever."

At the Bellagio in Las Vegas, the bartender may rim a moistened glass lip with pure silver flake. At Spago in Beverly Hills, they'll gold-dust a flute of sparkling wine. At Libation, a hip new bar on New York's Lower East Side, owner Dennis Keane serves up goblets of "The Ultimate Libation," with 10 Cane rum, Grand Marnier liqueur, Veuve Clicquot champagne, passion fruit nectar and 23-karat gold powder. "They're skeptical at first," says Keane. "Then they drink it right down." Of course they do. The drink costs $16.

And Conspicuous Consumption:

Though he is not really studied by economists much anymore, Thorstein Veblen might have been onto something in his 1899 treatise "The Theory of the Leisure Class," in which he coined the term "conspicuous consumption," his idea that consumers would spend freely, even wastefully, to display status items. One of his examples was the use of silver eating utensils. Veblen would likely consider edible gold right up there, says Ori Heffetz, an economics professor at Cornell University who did his own studies that found that as income increases, the wealthy spend not just more money but more money on items of highest visibility.

What about the FDA:

When The Washington Post calls the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, spokesman Michael Herndon puts us on the phone with an "FDA expert" in the food safety agency who says that edible gold and silver "has not gone through pre-market safety evaluations" at the FDA. "We haven't evaluated its use," the expert says. Why? Because no one has sought pre-market approval.

So consumers should or shouldn't eat the stuff? The FDA expert is not saying. It has not been studied by the FDA expert. The expert has examined no data. It is not a priority. The FDA is very busy. It is a gray area. It is inert.

Gold is somewhat inert but I wonder if these people know about Argyria. From the Florida State Department of Health:

This unfortunate gentleman used a product containing silver and is suffering Argyria. This is a permanent bluish-gray discoloration of the skin. Consumers should consult their physicians before consuming products containing silver, which have flooded the market in past years.