Food

I have to stop eating. Honestly, what's the point? My food is either going to make me fat, make me sick, or send me to the poor house.

I vowed to lose weight, again, this summer and I've lost two pounds. Good grief! You'd think a smart woman like me could figure out how to stay thin. I've done it before. I've been thin- okay thinner- and I've been fat, and thin and fat... It's a vicious cycle. I know a lot about nutrition. I've given up sodas and gone back to them. I've given up meat and gone back to it. I've given up bread... You get the idea. We've all done it. I've tried portion control. I really don't have a lot of terribly bad habits. And a lot of the things I've given up over the years- salt, sugar on cereal, butter on vegetables- have stayed out of my diet to the point where I no longer think about them.

I make these confessions to lead up to the reason why I checked out a "wellness" book at the library. I've been toying with the idea of returning to vegetarianism, simply because it would be cheaper and in the past has helped me lose weight. I'm not going to tell you the name of the book I checked out because I don't want to give it ANY publicity, but let me just say that the author has some very strange ideas. Obviously I fell for the hype on the book jacket and didn't read enough sample pages before taking it home! I'm just an ordinary Christian woman, raised by poor country folk who killed animals to survive and I was raised in a state (CA) that believes chemicals, especially pesticides, are the answer to every problem in life. If I seem overly critical of this author you can blame it on my upbringing. The author is not only a vegan (no meat, eggs, milk, meat, fish, or leather anything), but says that we have to worry about where and how our veggies are produced because "if the persons handling the food were possessed with resignation, disgust, anger and fear, that vibration is passed on to you when you ingest the product of their work." Say what??? She even makes the point that we must consider everyone involved in the process- from the farm worker picking the produce to the truck driver delivering it! Give me strength Lord- where do people get these ideas? Enough of that craziness...

In addition to worrying about veggies with an attitude, of course I have to worry about veggies with added germs. Each summer it seems we have a new outbreak of something that is going to kill us. Food warnings have become a sign of the times. The answer might seem to be "grow your own" but then you can worry about chemicals in the water and ground contamination from your neighbor's yard.

And food processing, especially of meat, is fraught with dangers. There was another hamburger recall this summer. I'll bet we weren't the only family in America that had just finished eating cheeseburgers when that announcement was made!  Of course this is another area where "do it yourself" doesn't help much- home canning and freezing your own food can kill you if you do something wrong.

Okay, if the dangers of eating weren't enough, now I have to take out a bank loan to go to the grocery store. That is going to end up giving me a heart attack! I used to be able to estimate how much my total would be before I even went to the store. Prices were steady enough from week to week to make them predictable. Those days are over! Now there might be as much as a 50 cent jump in the price of something between Monday and Saturday.  Even pet food prices are crazy! I buy a 12-pack of cat food that was $4.98 in April and $6.00 this week. Coffee is edging ever closer to $10. Milk is over $4.00. Ouch already!!

So, the best thing to do is stop eating. That would solve all my problems, especially the excess weight. Only glitch in that plan is the whole starving scenario. Don't think it would be enjoyable, healthy, or productive. What's a woman to do? I fall back to my personal mantra- I'll "do the best I can, where I am, with what I have" (and that includes the knowledge I have):

1. I'll try to eat a little less, to lose weight and save money.

2. I'll try to buy less "junk", which will also help me spend less and lose more. (Have you noticed that if you don't bring it home, you don't eat it?!) 

3. I'll try to pay attention to national recalls and warnings, but not lose sleep over every purchase.

What I will NOT do is worry about whether some illegal alien was having a good time picking my lettuce!

Have a great lunch!