I Am What I Chew

I’ve been slowly slipping off the wagon.  First it was pizza, then it was Taco Bell, then the mother of all fast food: a quarter pounder with cheese and large fries.

Yesterday, I woke up feeling like total crap and for some reason, I didn’t make the connection between the junk I was eating and the junky way I felt.

Hey, we all need to keep re-learning the same stuff, right?

So, last night I downloaded “SuperSize Me” from Netflix.  I sat horrified as the story unfolded about what happened to the filmmaker’s body when he embarked on a month-long McBinge — eating nothing but McDonald’s, three times a day.

The person lolling about on the couch, too tired and depressed to get up and go to bed, was instantly recognizable.  It was me.

The scariest part of the movie talked about addiction.  The high-fat diet actually makes you crave more of the greasy stuff and provides a high when consuming it. Worse, McDonald’s knows it.  It’s engineered that way.

After nearly destroying his health, the hero goes back to his organic vegan lifestyle (his girlfriend is a chef).  It takes months to lose the weight (25 pounds) and the ill effects (high cholesterol, liver damage, vitamin deficiency) that came with his 30-day McDiet.

What he willingly did to himself, I (and millions of others) unconsciously do to our bodies every day.

I will never again see the golden arches as the gateway to fun.  Beyond them lies the grave.

Only a mother could love this mean little persimmon-eater

This is a story about preconceptions.  When I lived in Indiana, we had a persimmon tree.  Every fall, the tree would produce copious amounts of small orange fruit that the local opossums loved.  (See mug shot at right).  I figured if an ugly, rat-tailed critter like the ‘possum loved persimmons, they were only fit for ugly, rat-tailed critters.

I put them on my “do not send” list when I signed up for “Farm Fresh to You,” a to-your-door organic produce service (more on this wonderment later).

Alas, my request was too late and my shipment arrived with half a dozen persimmons.

Now, my vow is to try any fruit or vegetable put in front of me, but I have to say I was afraid of that ‘possum fruit.  The persimmons of my youth were small, bitter, and hard unfit for human consumption unless laced with 3 pounds of sugar and cooked down to a jelly-like substance.

I found a recipe that used three kinds of fruit, courtesy of my organic farmer friends, and here’s what it looked like.

Winter Fruit Salad

The persimmons, which are hiding under the fuji apples and the satsuma mandarins, are as big as tomatoes and as sweet as peaches.

What a nice surprise.  I may even try brussels sprouts.

Nah.