The pleasures of eating… healthy!

I ran by the mall at lunch today, and so I decided to pick up lunch at the Qd0ba there. I got a naked vegetarian burrito (vegetarian only because I have consistently found the meat there very weird and, to me, inedible), and it reminded me of a couple pleasures and pains I wanted to share with y’all.

First of all, I got an aesthetic and oral thrill from the huge glop (that’s a technical term ;) of guacamole that accompanied my non-burrito burrito. Huge! Pretty! Guacamole green is something special. And the taste... oh, the taste! And the texture, all slippery and creamy. And then, the thrill of finding chunks of avocado in the guacamole. Yum! What a joy, to multiple senses, to get to eat such a delicious and fresh food. I mean, it has to be fresh, or it’d be an ugly and very unappetizing brown.

The guacamole reminded me of some women colleagues of mine, who I’d had lunch with several times at this very Qd0ba. All of these women had struggled with weight, to varying degrees. One, I found out at some point, was apparently a “closet eater”: she ate Like A Good Girl in public, I presume for the benefit of people she believed were watching her, but in private, she would do things like, eat an entire batch of cookies. Now, both of these thoughts distress me, in different ways, but in roughly equal proportion. The other eating thing about this particular woman (we’ll call her Nancy) was that she liked to say how she was a “grazer”. She ate all day long, but made a big show when her grazing was healthy foods. I point this out because I believe snacking is one of those things that actually makes and keeps you fat. I know plenty of people disagree with me, and that’s fine. To me, hunger between meals is a sign you didn’t eat enough at your meal – and Nancy proved me theory, eating her Good Girl lunch, which of course was never enough, and then snacking throughout the day to try to satisfy the hunger.

Anyway, my point about Nancy and the other women is that they were genearlly pretty much horrified and afraid of guacamole. “Oh no! That has too much fat in it!”, they would proclaim, refusing any offer of the offending green stuff. And it was said with a sort of self-righteousness, and judgmentalness that comes with eating Like A Good Girl. Or, if they did eat it, it was with guilt and apologies, and an attempt to give most of it away. Eating Like A Good Girl, by the way, apparently means suffering, and lots of it. It also, in my experience, tends to end up meaning eating pasteurized processed food-type products, instead of actual food, at least according to how I look at processed food-like items versus stuff that is readily identifiable as actual food. I guess I'm reactionary that way.

"No guacamole!" They cried. "Too much fat!" Especially for fat girls, we can’t possibly have something with fat in it, least of all in PUBLIC! Yet these same people would get their flour tortilla, which has twice the calories (I am not making this up) as the guac! Not to mention, the (hyper-processed) flour and excess carbs is part of, I believe, the cause for the very real hunger and/or physiological cravings that shortly followed their floury but guac-free lunch.

Guac, though, is the good stuff! The fat in guac is the best kind for your body. More than that, avocado, a fresh fruit, has other micro- and macro-nutrients, all of which you get in addition to the good fats when you’re eating guac. Add this on top of the very visceral pleasure of eating this food and really, ya seem like a damn fool to me to turn this stuff down. Which may be part of why I don’t hang around these ladies anymore… but I digress.

One of the fringe benefits of my weight loss efforts last year was that I rediscovered how truly delicious some very simple foods are. Take pineapple, and mango. I knew I liked them, but for some reason just never had them very often. A splurge for me was something processed, not something natural. But in making it a point to try to get 5 a day, and in trying to always mix it up, and not eat the same things day after day (both to avoid boredom and to ensure you’re getting a good mix of nutrients), I had a real reason to buy and eat those foods. They became the splurge. And, Oh! My! God! How sweet and delicious pineapple is! How tender and succulent and slippery and subtlely sweet nice, fresh mango is! Serious pleasure flows from eating these and plenty of other all-natural foods, like the guac. A flourless chocolate cake may be good but honestly, it’s a tough call to say it’s better than this stuff. Am I right?!

Another thing I discovered last year was how truly wonderful fresh herbs are. Toss some cilantro or basil leaves in your salad, and WOW! The pop of their fresh taste along with the variety of things in the salad is, honestly, a delicious meal. Or, pop some fresh tomatoes, a bit of onion and cilantro in your food processor and in about two minutes, you have what may well be the best salsa you've ever tasted. After having it fresh, the stuff in the jars seems gelatinous and weird, and no longer appeals.

The biggest issues here is that, in my experience, being a dieter often keeps you away from this incredible bounty! Guac is too fattening, pineapple and mango have too much sugar, no time to make fresh salsa because you gotta have another batch of 0-p0int soup on hand, blah blah blah, while you mostly choke down the latest pasteurized processed food replacement product, not too remote from the Jetsons, and focus on trying to find its good points.

Um, no thanks.

Which is funny, too, since, as little miss ess pointed out in comments recently, that someone said to her, “oh, I could never give up my potatoes” or whatever. Well, I myself could never give up my pineapple, or my mango, or god forbid, my guac. I find it curious that people tend to focus on what you’re cutting out, instead of what you’re getting back. But then again, maybe that’s because, on the standard “diet”, you’re really not getting much back at all. You’re suffering, paying pennance for the sins of (perceived) gluttony, and weighing more than the anorexic cultural ideal. Just like a Good Girl is supposed to.

Again, no thanks. Oh, and fuck you very much for suggesting it.

Later this week, if anyone’s interested, I’m going to do a first for me, and post a recipe for some truly outstanding broccoli salad, made with olive oil, garlic and soy sauce. Heavenly! French fries might not ever tempt me again, with food this delicious around. What delicious foods do you love including in your healthy diet? I’d love some new suggestions. Enjoy your food today!