Food Revolution: Part I

I have always had an interesting relationship with food. The vast majority of our relationship has simply consisted of me eating it. Food was simply a means to an end. I liked the way it tasted and I liked feeling full. Mom never forced us to eat things or forbade us from eating others. Our snack drawer was always full of Swiss Cake Rolls, fruit roll ups, LOTS of potato chips, lots of packaged mini cakes, and one of my personal favorites….honey buns. For dinner we almost always ate as a family. About half the time that was at home and the other half was spent eating out. During sports seasons our nights were frequently spent at the Chinese Buffet near us, Ci-Ci’s Pizza (another buffet), or Wendy’s.

When Mom cooked at home things like Spaghetti, Hamburger Helper, Beef Stroganoff were popular dishes. Always accompanied by sides of mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, and bread of some sort. Not terrible at all! The problem was more in the amount we ate (the amount put on our plates and the amount set in front of us). Generally, when my mom would try to get creative with things it would get shot down at the table.

It wasn’t until I went to college that my relationship with food got straight abusive. I had a dinning hall where I could eat as much *crap* as I possibly wanted…every single night. I had a C-Store below me where I could satisfy my late night cravings with microwavable hamburgers and pizzas (each having around 600 calories a piece). During the day I could stop by at Taco Bell to fill myself with 5 tacos (the amount that counted as “lunch”) or chick-fil-a for the famously delicious deep fried chicken sandwich and french fries. Once I moved off campus I first started cooking. My cooking usually consisted of a piece of chicken (out of the economy size bag of frozen chicken) seasoned with an array of dried spices, a can of green beans, and boxed white rice.

I never developed a pallet. I never knew what food actually tasted like…all the tastes either blended together or I ate too fast and left myself feeling too full to sense nothing other than my bulging belly. It wasn't this abuse of the food I ate that began my food revolution...at the time it was the realization of the gravity of my weight problems. I had to loose weight.