Can We Talk 2

Going Natural

         I made a decision to eat more fruits and vegetables, preferably raw. If I have cooked vegetables, they should not be mixed with pasta or sauces. Well, deciding and actually pulling it off are two different things.

         I come in from work and I'm ready to snack. I can take out a kiwi and peel it or I can grab my Dad's Cheetos. Before I make a conscious decision, a handful of Cheetos are already down my throat. You wouldn't think that getting out a knife and peeling a little kiwi would be such a delay in gratification, but apparently it is. My subconscious takes over while I'm thinking about it.

         I get my fruit in the early morning. Plus my computer program counts avocado and raw tomatoes as fruit. Cooked tomatoes count as vegetables. I eat ribs of celery at work for lunch, followed by low cal yogurt, but the celery is so low cal that it doesn't register very high on the vegetable list. Surely the fiber must count for something.

         Trying to eat "naturally" is not easy, almost impossible. Organic costs more, and it isn't as pretty or as big. We bought things from a local farmer on a weekly basis one year, but found it was too much for us. I couldn't prepare it all before it went to waste. And we had to eat seasonal stuff until we were sick of it. The supermarket has that great variety, that was shipped from faraway and has preservatives, hormones, and all that jazz that's not good for us. There's a lot to be said for the taste of "vine ripened" any thing.

         So I sit in the lunch room with my celery and yogurt and gaze into the vending machine with the Rice Krispy Treats and tell myself that I'm satisfied. I don't feel convinced, but I keep talking it up. At home, I really want to fix the Rice A Roni, but I try to fill myself up with steamed asparagus and romaine with vinaigrette. I pushed spaghetti squash last week. I ate a lot of that to try to stay away from processed stuff.

         The bottom line is I really like that processed stuff that doesn't seem to have any connection to anything that grows from nature, plant or animal. I must be addicted to all those chemicals and fake foods. Eggplant, zucchini, and corn on the cob just can't compete with imitation food. Corn, by the way requires an awful lot of chewing to prevent coming out the same way it goes in. You'd think you would just get tired of eating after chewing corn, but no. There's always room for dessert.