I felt like being obnoxious and sarcastic, so I wrote this:
Everyone is talking about getting healthier lately and it’s all great, but I have given myself permission not to be healthy. I’m so sick of people justifying their dislike of anyone who weighs more than 98 pounds (and especially anyone who ways over 135) as saying, “Well, they are so unhealthy. Of course we’re concerned.” Cute. As if they care about the health of other people, or ever cared about the health of grown women who weigh 98 pounds. They don’t. Really, they don’t. It’s just their excuse for prejudice.
The truth is: unless you have a personal chef or nutritionist who runs your life, or unlimited funds (in which case, you’d have both the chef and nutritionist), you basically have to have some kind of eating disorder or lack of taste buds to be “healthy” (i.e. 98 pounds). OR, you might have some sort of obsessive-compulsive disorder (combined with a body free of any physical ailments that limit mobility) that has you working out for a few hours a day. But REAL people live in the REAL world without the benefit of the aforementioned afflictions.
So oh-waaa, anyone who weighs more than 135 pounds is a fat, unhealthy pig. Okay, we get it. But if you do weigh more than 135 pounds and you’re that worried about health, just off yourself and then you won’t have to worry any more! Easy peasy!
Oh, I’m being overdramatic, but here are some frustrations from a recent grocery shopping trip:
- We’re supposed to eat whole grain pasta not regular pasta (of course, most health nuts will tell you that you should never be allowed to eat any pasta, ever, not even accidentally, or you’ll go straight to hell). Good luck finding whole grain manicotti noodles! Maybe at a Whole Foods, but we don’t even have one in town. My mother used to have a pasta maker and maybe one could make their own whole-grain manicotti noodles, but who has that kind of time? Okay, maybe I do have that kind of time; I just don’t have that kind of motivation! It’s a failing, clearly. I’m sure you’re thinking that anyone who wants to eat Manicotti is an unhealthy bastard who deserves to die, anyway. Perhaps you’re right. I’ll tell my husband what you think of him.
- We’re supposed to only eat brown rice and not white rice. As I stood in the rice aisle looking over brown rice, I remembered that it takes three days to cook (well more or less, maybe slightly less) and that the last two times I made it we both had the same sentiment: “kill it with fire!” It’s horrible stuff. I know that vegans like it, but those kooks have no taste buds. They would eat cardboard if you put it in front of them, since in most cases, there are no animal products in card board. Personally, I don’t trust people who would eat cardboard. But seriously brown rice tastes like paper or paper by-products! If I had the kind of willpower to choke down food that taste like non-food items, I’d have the kind of will power to be anorexic, which, I’m sure, is the better alternative!! As I tried to google brown rice alternatives recently I came across someone who had asked a question on yahoo: “What are some ways to make brown rice not taste like death? Is it even possible?” See? I’m not the only one. That stuff is SHIT. Eat it at your own peril!
- I stood in the bread aisle, sighing loudly at the plethora of bad choices available to us. We’re “supposed” to eat 100% Whole Wheat Bread, but the problem is they ALL say 100% Whole Wheat Bread and yet ONLY ONE LOAF of bread in the whole store is ACTUALLY 100% Whole Wheat and I’d probably have an easier time finding a needle in a haystack. I suppose if you stand there, reading all the labels, you might find the one “healthy” loaf of bread, but you have to know all the secret code words and I can only remember two. Even if I did, by accident, find the healthy bread, it would cost about $5 more than the other breads with 50% fewer slices, and, most likely, tastes as bad as the brown rice — hideous! My husband pleaded, “Please don’t get gross bread!” and so I gave up and let him choose. He grabbed 100% white bread. I didn’t argue. I’ve had people tell me that if I pick the wrong “100% Whole Wheat” bread I might as well be eating white bread, so… *shrug* His pick was probably as nutritious as my choice would have been. I know we’ll probably drop dead by the end of the week for eating it, but it’s just SO FRUSTRATING! WHY are companies allowed to put “100% whole wheat” on something that SO IS NOT?! (More importantly, why are they allowed to make stuff like brown rice that isn’t fit for human consumption? Seriously, WHY?!)
- One of my recipes this week requires cream cheese. I know! I know! Cream cheese is not healthy and we’re sure to drop dead by the end of the week if we eat it. I know all about it. However, I justified this to myself by looking for the “lite” cream cheese (which is probably less healthy than regular, knowing how the companies lie so badly, but at least I was making an attempt to be healthy!). Except, the store doesn’t sell any lite cream cheese! I’m certain I’ve seen it there before, so WTF people?! You would think the grocery stores would WANT to keep us alive so we would continue buying food, rather than intentionally chasing us into an early death. Apparently they don’t think very far ahead.
Well, fuck it! I’ll eat “white” manicotti noodles and die since I have no alternatives. I’ll eat white rice and die, since death seems preferable to eating dirty sweat socks. I’m thinking I’ll try making my own home-bread wheat bread again, and dig out the recipe for turning cottage cheese into lower-fat cream cheese.
I did buy a bunch of fresh fruits and vegetables in an attempt to trick the cashier into thinking we weren’t unhealthy slobs who only eat white rice, white bread and white pasta and processed foods. And we might actually eat them, too (although my husband eyed me suspiciously when I bought a rainbow of peppers. “What are you going to do with those?” he asked. “I’m going to sneak them into your breakfast cereal!” I replied. You’d be surprised the number of foods he tells people he hates that I sneak into his food and he still eats them on a fairly regular basis. Once at the farmer’s market he said, “What’s that?” to the guy and the guy said, “Eggplant” and husband said, “Yuck! I don’t eat eggplant!” and I said, “You’d be surprised the number of times you’ve eaten eggplant”)! Then again, maybe we are just unhealthy slobs who only eat white rice, white bread, white pasta and processed foods!
And a reminder: For the love of all that is holy, never tell anyone specifics of what you’re eating if you are trying to be healthier. They’ll tell you whatever you’re eating (or substituting) is the WORST FOOD EVAR and you might as well be eating straight sugar or pure lard. Last year I was eating carrot sticks and the website I was using to calculate my calories told me that carrots were almost all carbs and that I shouldn’t be eating them. (In fact, that website felt that most vegetables were 90% carbs and that website seemed to think no one should ever eat any carbs at all.) I told someone I was eating a salad one time and was given a lecture that unless I was eating a particular kind of salad greens, I might as well be eating cookies because, she claimed, there is NO NUTRITIONAL VALUE in most lettuces. And then I was lectured that if I was using any kind of salad dressing or cheese on the salad, I might as well be eating a burger and that even “light” salad dressings were nothing but sugary calories that were the equivalent to drinking two non-diet sodas. Another time I mentioned using frozen vegetables for a recipe and another person gave me a lecture about how frozen and canned vegetables are just empty calories with no nutritional value and if I was too lazy to use all fresh vegetables I might as well just eat a pizza. And don’t tell them you are drinking ANYTHING but water. Trust me on this. Everything you could possibly drink is apparently, unhealthy, except water. And don’t tell them you bought (or let them see you with) buy bottled water because then they’ll insist you are single-handedly ruining the environment. And finally, don’t ever mention you’re cooking with any cheeses, sour creams, cream cheeses, or yogurts, not even the lighter versions, or you’ll be chewed out for that, too. In fact, I’m absolutely certain someone is already typing a reply to this to bitch me out for the simple act of standing in the cream cheese aisle at the supermarket.
I’m telling you, eating healthy is nearly impossible. It’s better to be anorexic, or maybe take up meth. I might take up meth. That sounds like a plan.
I hope this cautionary tale helps you out. :-)
