Anyone who knows me, knows I appreciate good food. I do consider myself a bit of a foodie. Perhaps even a food snob.
However, were other foodies to find out about some of my guilty pleasures, my status would be immediately cancelled, and I’d be ostracized for crimes against reasonable cuisine.
I’m going to risk it.
Looking back, I blame it all on my mother. I was blessed to have a Stay at Home Mom until I was well into my teens. She’s a great cook, and always made me eat a healthy breakfast, packed a nutritious lunch, and had a balanced dinner on the table when my dad came home from work. Pizza nights at my house didn’t happen because she was too tired to cook – they happened as a treat because everyone genuinely wanted pizza.
Sounds pretty good, right?
All of this comes with a dark side.
Because there was always such an abundance of quality good and mostly good for me food around (because really, a house is not a home without cookies!), certain things were pretty much outlawed.
And now, of course, since I’m allegedly a grownup and have full reign over my own pantry the following items that I was never fed as a child make regular appearances in my diet:
– Lunchables
– Handy Snacks
– Pop Tarts
– Sugary Cereals
– Pizza Pops
– Chef Boyardee
– Eggo Waffles
– Kraft Singles
I’m sure there are quite a few other non-nutritive offenders out there that I’ve forgotten, but you get the gist.
I don’t make a regular habit of eating these, but if I’m especially ill or stressed out, I seem to crave them. I suppose the total lack of nutritional content or anything challenging to digest makes them a popular caloric option for an upstet tummy.
So if you see me chowing on white bread grilled cheese sandwiches or eggo waffles, you know something’s up.
And if you have any brilliant ideas about how to make me feel this way about something like broccoli, please pass them on.
And whatever you do, please don’t tell my mom!
I can’t convince you to crave greens, but you can always do yourself a favour and not buy these foods. Make a point to only go grocery shopping when you’re not feeling too stressed out, so you won’t be inclined to buy these foods. Then when you ARE stressed out or sick, they won’t be conveniently available, and you probably won’t feel up to hiking to the store to get them.
This strategy has worked well for Mel and I. We just tend not to buy crap. If we’re sick or stressed or “artificially hungry”, we’d wolf down some doritos or pizza pops if they were around. Since they’re not around, we eat a spinach salad instead.
my big one used to be “Miss Vickie’s” chips. I’d eat a whole bag without even noticing! Ick.
Lately I haven’t been craving it at all, though, cause I’ve been eating really wholesome stuff. My new favourite is squash soup…. mmmm, a little slice of heaven! The flavour is indescribable.
I’m with Chris – keep the bad stuff out of your house!
A couple of ideas for you:
– only eat the comfort food if you have made it from scratch (funny thing – like Mike, I have recently fallen in love with squash soup as well – a great recipe from the guy who does the plants at my office – easy to make, freezes well, tastes GREAT!)
– try fat-free cheese slices – all the taste, no fat and a quick hit of protein
– get raw almonds (best value are the HUGE bags at COSTCO)
– get low-fat microwave popcorn – lots of carbs but very satisfying
– if you need a carb fix, get some all grain, low-carb bread (Silver Hills is great), pop it in the toaster and, if you are so inclined, slather it with all natural peanut butter and maybe a wee bit of honey
On another note, your story reminded me of my own Mom – I too was lucky that she stayed at home to care for four kids – I wouldn’t say she was a great cook, but she covered the basics well enough.
Her gift was homemade bread – once a week, every week for the first 17 years of my life, I remember my Mom baking enough bread to feed her family and a select group of her friends.
It was fantastic bread, but I always craved store-bought white bread as it made better toast and tasted soooo yummy even with just butter melted on it. Of course I never eat the stuff now!
Chris: I know Mel’s told me you guys feel a LOT better now that you’re eating better.
Mike: oh.. the wicked, wicked Miss Vicki!
tye: I’m not so much worried about the healthy or low-fat aspect. A cheese slice is a cheese slice – more chemicals than cheese, whether they make it fat-free or not. Some great artisan cheese is far preferable to the kraft cheese-type product! But for some reason, I still eat the Kraft every now and again.