I have had ********** (censored) years to figure out how my body handles food and food additives. For example, I know that for me, coffee is like a shot of crank. It produces creativity, undeniable (read sarcasm) brilliance, boundless energy... and an abysmal bottom out a few hours later. I love coffee, so, frankly, that sucks, but I avoid coffee all the same. I'm pretty sure aspartame and MSG give me wicked headaches, not to mention being just plain evil, so I avoid those too. Yet, even knowing myself, I still occasionally like to do something really stupid. Like eat ice cream. At lunch time. I know what ice cream does to me. It puts me in a coma, that's what. Milk doesn't have the same effect, but ice cream = instant coma. I don't know what it is; perhaps the combination of lactose and other sugars with tryptophan that makes my hypoglycemic alter-ego come out to... well, nap... So, on a rainy day at work, when I was feeling somnolent anyway, I thought, "Hey, I'll eat some ice cream and make it really impossible to stay awake! Yay!" Sometimes, I just like to do something really illogical to remind myself I'm not a robot.
This brings me to my current "rumination of the month:" Food: moral issue or nonissue? I was driving home from work with my kids in the car. For some reason, they were really quiet. Either they were content, or someone had drugged them. I don't know. Anyway, I had some peaceful moments to think, and what I was thinking was this, "Why does food feel like a moral issue?" See previous post. It does, though. You hear people say, "I just ate this huge *whatever* and I feel guilty now." I never understood that one, personally. Where I get hit is with things like food additives and health effects. Obviously, since I was just ranting about it not long ago, things like aspartame and sucralose bother me. But so does McDonald's mystery food, which my kids are just as addicted to as most American kids. Then there's the fact that I couldn't get my kids to touch a green vegetable with a fifteen foot stick. And the fact that simply everything, and I mean every-flippin'-thing, is full of sugar. Even if you skip desert, you still run into sugar sugar sugar.
A tiny bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. I'm pretty sure somebody or other with clout said that. It's true. You see, I know what eating too much sugar does: obesity, diabetes, mood disorders, hyperactivity, hypothyroidism, and/or hypo-immunity. I know what eating too much fat does: heart disease, stroke, liver disease, aneurysm, and/or obesity. I know what eating weird chemicals does: Alzheimer's, mood disorders, headaches, hyperactivity, dementia, and/or cancer. All of it, simply all of it, makes me freak out and feel guilty about the kind of poison I'm feeding my kids. Then I try to correct it with things like honey instead of sugar, and banning soda from my house, and eschewing McDonald's, no matter how much whining happens. I buy "natural" peanut butter, which is just ground peanuts, and "natural" apple sauce with theoretically has no added sugar, and bread made with actual sugar instead of high fructose whatever... I'm doing the best I can, but it gets to the point where I don't want to eat anything at all, and every bite that goes into my kids' mouths makes me cringe. Then, of course, there's the battle with my husband who reminds me when I refuse to buy pop that, "I still have a sweet tooth, you know, " and who would rather take the kids to McDonald's on Monday night than boil spaghetti and dump canned sauce on it for them. ARG! I'm trying to cure the $@%* sweet tooth, thank you! And having an adult whine about my antisugar campaign just makes it harder with my kids. "Do what I say and not what I do. " Swing your partner, do-si-do, where the headache stops, nobody knows!
Still, I had an epiphany the other day, and it was this: what is the point of health, if not to make life more enjoyable? And how can life be enjoyable if one is constantly wigging out about whether or not some foodstuff is going to effect your health? So I take a deep breath, and I decide... Natural peanut butter with sugar-loaded jelly on wheat or rye bread is okay. Ovaltine chocolate milk is okay. Decaf tea with a little sugar is okay. Cheese and dairy are okay a bit at a time. Bacon is probably not okay most of the time. My kids eat fish, so there I'm doing good (except for the mercury... no, wait! Don't get sidetracked!). Charlie eats fruit. Good. Charlie and Abe, with much brow-beating, will eat corn, peas, green beans. Okay. It's a start. We're not macrobiotic or super-food or organic, but we're taking baby steps. Breathe. Institute moderation policy. Breathe. Model good habits. Breathe. And hit husband with a rolling pin when he asks for pop...
This brings me to my current "rumination of the month:" Food: moral issue or nonissue? I was driving home from work with my kids in the car. For some reason, they were really quiet. Either they were content, or someone had drugged them. I don't know. Anyway, I had some peaceful moments to think, and what I was thinking was this, "Why does food feel like a moral issue?" See previous post. It does, though. You hear people say, "I just ate this huge *whatever* and I feel guilty now." I never understood that one, personally. Where I get hit is with things like food additives and health effects. Obviously, since I was just ranting about it not long ago, things like aspartame and sucralose bother me. But so does McDonald's mystery food, which my kids are just as addicted to as most American kids. Then there's the fact that I couldn't get my kids to touch a green vegetable with a fifteen foot stick. And the fact that simply everything, and I mean every-flippin'-thing, is full of sugar. Even if you skip desert, you still run into sugar sugar sugar.
A tiny bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. I'm pretty sure somebody or other with clout said that. It's true. You see, I know what eating too much sugar does: obesity, diabetes, mood disorders, hyperactivity, hypothyroidism, and/or hypo-immunity. I know what eating too much fat does: heart disease, stroke, liver disease, aneurysm, and/or obesity. I know what eating weird chemicals does: Alzheimer's, mood disorders, headaches, hyperactivity, dementia, and/or cancer. All of it, simply all of it, makes me freak out and feel guilty about the kind of poison I'm feeding my kids. Then I try to correct it with things like honey instead of sugar, and banning soda from my house, and eschewing McDonald's, no matter how much whining happens. I buy "natural" peanut butter, which is just ground peanuts, and "natural" apple sauce with theoretically has no added sugar, and bread made with actual sugar instead of high fructose whatever... I'm doing the best I can, but it gets to the point where I don't want to eat anything at all, and every bite that goes into my kids' mouths makes me cringe. Then, of course, there's the battle with my husband who reminds me when I refuse to buy pop that, "I still have a sweet tooth, you know, " and who would rather take the kids to McDonald's on Monday night than boil spaghetti and dump canned sauce on it for them. ARG! I'm trying to cure the $@%* sweet tooth, thank you! And having an adult whine about my antisugar campaign just makes it harder with my kids. "Do what I say and not what I do. " Swing your partner, do-si-do, where the headache stops, nobody knows!
Still, I had an epiphany the other day, and it was this: what is the point of health, if not to make life more enjoyable? And how can life be enjoyable if one is constantly wigging out about whether or not some foodstuff is going to effect your health? So I take a deep breath, and I decide... Natural peanut butter with sugar-loaded jelly on wheat or rye bread is okay. Ovaltine chocolate milk is okay. Decaf tea with a little sugar is okay. Cheese and dairy are okay a bit at a time. Bacon is probably not okay most of the time. My kids eat fish, so there I'm doing good (except for the mercury... no, wait! Don't get sidetracked!). Charlie eats fruit. Good. Charlie and Abe, with much brow-beating, will eat corn, peas, green beans. Okay. It's a start. We're not macrobiotic or super-food or organic, but we're taking baby steps. Breathe. Institute moderation policy. Breathe. Model good habits. Breathe. And hit husband with a rolling pin when he asks for pop...
No comments:
Post a Comment