Tuna, Bananas and Spinach
from the February 8, 2002 Tahoe World
I remember back in the day when eating was just a way to cure hunger. Or sometimes even pass the time. I remember coming home from school to have two or three bowls of cereal, going to Taco Bell and ordering one of everything, working at Baskin Robins and eating a triple sundae for lunch.
I was good at making sundaes too. One scoop chocolate chip cookie dough, one scoop chocolate peanut butter, one scoop mint chocolate chip, fudge, caramel, whipped cream, nuts and a cherry on top.
Of course now I know the only healthy part of that assembly was the spoon.
My first brush with nutrition occurred around the middle of that ice cream-scooping summer. I got a package in the mail. It had a lot of important information about my upcoming responsibilities as a part of Lehigh University's varsity soccer program. Things I needed to do, things I couldn't do anymore, things I had to get ready to do … and a pamphlet on nutrition. As I recall it was about 10 pages long and outlined the health merits of almost every food imaginable. According to the pamphlet soup is healthy. And that's about it.
Lots of carbohydrates in pasta but too much sodium in the sauce. Vitamins and minerals in dairy products but too much fat. Good nutrients in fruit but too much sugar. Lots of protein in hamburgers but, again, fat. Plenty of good stuff in tuna but no mayonnaise. No soda. No candy. No fried foods. No Taco Bell.
While I had gleaned a great deal of information from the pamphlet it was really nothing I didn't already know. Don't eat fat, don't eat fried food. That's obvious. But at 17 you can get away with those types of things and not notice any differences. At six feet and 145 pounds I actually may have been in need of a little heft, anyway.
So I made some minor efforts. I quit fast foods when it was convenient to do so and actually did not drink soda during the soccer season. If there was a plausible option to keep me away from fried food I would take it.
Difficult, but reasonable expectations.
Nutrition actually became a part of my consciousness. Formerly in search of high fat meals I began to accept the benefits of nutrition having watched some of my other high school friends gain poundage ad nauseam during the college years. I also began to notice what good condition my father remained in as he aged with a vegetarian diet. Then I thought back to some of the kids back home who were vegetarians, they were all over 6 feet tall and none were obese. So maybe they're on to something with this vegetarianism. Add meat to the bad list.
All right, that's pretty hard. No meat? Not even chicken? What's wrong with chicken? But willing to make a small step I decided to stop ordering steak when I went out to dinner at nice restaurants. Not a huge impact, but a mental stride nonetheless. I used to love the steak, but now went to non-red meat if available.
After college I found out about carbohydrates and how bad they are. Geeze, I always thought those were good for you. You know, stored energy and such? Bread. How can bread possibly be bad for you? But apparently there's science to back it up and all these people are getting great results with the non-carbo diet, so maybe I should cut down on those too. Maybe I should quit the cereal trough feeding frenzies of years past.
Oh, and then it was dairy products too. Found out from one of my aunts that they're bad also. She cut them out of her diet and now she feels great. More energy, no lethargy, increased muscle tone, better skin. You know dairy is for infants; the hormones aren't good for adults.
Now this is bad. Cheese. Milk. Yogurt. My staples. I need these things. Used to go through a gallon of milk every two days. Had stacks of yogurt in the fridge, melted cheese on everything.
Haven't we eroded, like, 3/4 of the food groups, or pyramid or chain or whatever by now?
So I was back on the health kick yesterday at Safeway buying groceries. I wanted dinner and figured I'd go out of my way to make it healthy by preparing it myself. Saw bananas, nothing wrong with them, right? So they went in the basket. Put my nose down straight through the dairy section and walked past the bread aisle at a quick clip.
I passed on the pet food section.
Let a breath out as I passed the toiletries aisle and tried to regroup. I had vitamins already, now I needed protein. Ah, tuna fish. Solid white on sale. Got protein covered. Hey, relax, my dad eats tuna. So maybe he's not a total veggie but let's not split hairs here. Got really aggravated as I passed the cereal aisle followed directly by the soda aisle. Frozen foods came next. Spinach. Popeye eats spinach. Iron, minerals, greenery. All good there.
I got home excited about my resolve. Look at this health in front of me, what a good job I did. Tuna, bananas and spinach.
Nasty.
So I cooked a frozen pizza.