Fruit Salad

Under doctor's orders, I am resolved to try to eat better. Let's see how long this lasts. 

Now, to be fair to me, a few years ago when I embarked on a similar voyage I actually did manage to lose twenty pounds and drop my blood pressure thirty eight points. So hey, it can happen. Deep within my being is some semblance of willpower.

Last Friday I was heading into my local supermarket determined to get fried fish from their deli as my lunch. Then that lurking spirit of will crept up. Passing the deli counter I approached the fresh fruit, where some reasonably priced fruit salads were on display. The one I selected had a mixture of watermelon, cantaloupe, and honeydew, obvious through the plastic container. The bottom layer seemed to me to be black olives. That struck me as odd, olives in a fruit salad. But I like black olives, so I bought it.

Once home and checking email, I ate the fruit rather quickly and went after an olive. The sweet taste informed me that the black olives were in fact grapes. 

It all makes sense to me now. Fruit salad wouldn't have any bit of vegetable, would it?

Bioengineered Granola

One day as I sat with me Mom at her kitchen table, me brother Ed came in with a box of granola bars. They kept granola bars on hand because Mom had taken a liking to them, and the doctor said to let her eat want she wants so long as she's eating. Granola bars aren't bad for you anyway, right?

Me brother said this new brand he found was very, very good. "Here: try one," Ed tells me, and I do. They were very good, excellent really, especially the apple spice for what that's worth. But as I was too lazy to get my cell phone out of my pocket to do something, uh, substantial while I ate, I began reading the wrapper which the granola bar came in.

That one granola bar, all one inch by three inches by 3/8 of an inch thick, had forty-four, count 'em, 44 ingredients. They ran the gamut from the unpronounceable super long, vaguely Latin word to the simple and almost expected 'salt'. But at the end of the line, set off to itself in its own paragraph, I was informed that the bar 'contains a bioengineered food ingredient'.

I don't really care about that as such. Bioengineering doesn't bother me per se; we've been modifying our foodstuffs in many ways, shapes, and forms for all of human history. What perplexed and upset me was that in all the rambling quasi-nonsense about the forty-four ingredients, they couldn't take a minute to tell me which one was in fact bioengineered.

I mean, come on, now. If it's important enough to put on a package that something has been altered in a presumably questionable manner, how is it not importan to tell me exactly which item was such an offense against God and man? There's a veritable litany of ingredients, foreign and domestic, all crammed onto the back of the wrapper like an eleventh grader trying to cheat on a history test, yet you won't say which one was genetically modified? I don't get that at all.

Little White Pills

"I think we should try a blood pressure medication. Are you all right with that, Mr. Cosgriff?" my doctor asked me yesterday.

"Yes, I am," I replied. My blood pressure has been high for about two years now. I do walk 6 out of 7 mornings, yet could stand to lose weight. Not that I haven't actually lost any. Between February's checkup and yesterday's I lost a pound. True, that isn't impressive. But it is, uh, shall we say, trending in the right direction.

My mind had already been made up that I was going to ask for medication no matter what he told me. I don't want to be paranoid but as I told the good doc, I don't want to have a debilitating stroke at 68 because we didn't start taking precautionary measures now. He agreed, along with the admonition to continue walking and to try to eat better and lose a few pounds. In my defense I think I am eating better. I'm just eating too much of it. Three pounds of salad, even dry salad (no dressing) is still three pounds of food.

I'll take my blood pressure every day along with the name which I can't pronounce of the prescription drug. I heard all the warnings: watch that your pressure doesn't drop too low, notice if you have dizzy spells (quiet Ron) and blah, blah. I didn't listen to nor read them all. The precautions are too much like War and Peace these days.

 With all that in mind, I held the little pill in my hand this morning before popping it down my throat, thinking, well, me and you now, little buddy. It's simply another aspect of the aging process. Life goes on. Hopefully for quite a while yet.

Not Just For Pizza Anymore

Ah, pepperoni. Who doesn't love you? Along with bacon, you go with anything.

Everyone is familiar with the classic cheese and pepperoni pizza. But I keep pepperoni around for my sandwiches. A few on a simple ham and cheese or even a plain old bologna sandwich give lunch a neat little kick. And now that I'm exclusively using whole wheat bread, it's healthy too.

Whenever I'm in Hessel in Michigan's glorious Upper Peninsula, I like to eat at an Italian restaurant called Ang-Gio's in nearby Cedarville. They have among other menu offerings one great cheese and pepperoni pizza themselves. But I love their all you can eat soup and salad bar, because it has more than vegetables. Along with black olives, and it's hard to go wrong with black olives, friends, their salad bar always has pepperoni, with which you can pile onto, er, top off your salad. Plus it's salad, so it's healthy, right?

Bacon? Absolutely. Give some thought to pepperoni too. 

Going Bananas Foster

Do you want to know what will break your diet? Do you want to know what will tell your diet to walk out that door and don't never come back, don't even glance over your shoulder? I'll tell you what. But first, a backstory. That always aids understanding, right?

I'm trying to count my calories. Yes, I am. Really. I'm also trying to eat better. Yes, I am. Really. 

As part of all that, I bought a box of Raisin Bran this past Sunday. Bran is good for you right? But when I went to have a bowl this morning, there was no milk. Bound and determined to have that cereal and start towards better health and better eating habits, I ran around to the local supermarket. For a half a gallon of milk. That's all.

I passed right by these delightful iced cinnamon rolls and nearly bought a package. But, no, no, no, Marty. Diet. Calories. Discipline. Raisin Bran. Hold firm old bean. And I did tow the line, I held firm. I did not buy the rolls. Despite how well they go with morning coffee.

Grabbing the milk from the far back corner of the store, I made my way to the cash register via the ice cream aisle. What could go wrong? Because it can't, you know, hurt just to see what kind of ice cream was available.

So you know what will break your diet? Bananas Foster ice cream will more than break it. It absolutely destroys it. It leaves your diet in a mushroom cloud wafting deliriously towards the ceiling. That diet is vaporized when Bananas Foster is through with you. 

So there's always tomorrow to start my diet anew. It's not like I ate the whole half gallon. 

Quiet Ron.

Could the vegans be onto something?

I got a mini-lecture from my doctor after my checkup Monday. My blood pressure was up after having been good for about three years now, but I have not watched my diet at all in the last six months. Not even in passing, although I did gain a mere two pounds in the last half year. On top of that, my coffee drinking has spiked up to (honestly) five or so cups a day where he wants me to stop at two. Caffeine apparently contributes to high blood pressure if only in the short term, dash it all. That one really strikes at my Cosgriff psyche, let me tell you. My Hutchins side too gets its dander up at the thought of limiting my coffee intake. Both sides of my family tree are/were heavy imbibers of the bean.

But, of course, the medicos these days try not to dish out pills willy nilly. So I got my talk about eating better and putting the pedal to the coffee brake (yes, I meant that; I'm so punny). Lose weight, watch the carbs, easy on the salt, slow down on the coffee, cut down on red meat and processed foods, blah, blah, freakin' blah. One meal a day should be salad or vegetables only, Marty. Yet to be fair, when I paid at least some attention to my diet and ate somewhat better my BP did go down, from 158/94 to 107/74 my last checkup before this one. It was 146/86 Monday if you care to know.

Anyway, as I morosely walked along the fruit and vegetable aisles at the local supermarket looking for, ahem, good things to eat, I spied a package of broccoli and cauliflower and carrots which you could steam in the bag. All right, methinks, me gotta try something. I bought a bag, and I microwave steamed it when I got home. And It. Was. Good. Very good, in fact. Without butter, mind you!

So maybe the vegans are onto something. If I can find more easy fixes like that (I did also buy some dry salad that I will, I swear, make myself eat for lunch the next two days) I might actually get into the vegan thing.

Not that I expect to actually do that full bore, mind you. I cannot imagine taking that big of a step. It goes against my quite admittedly carnivorous tastes. Still, I never imagined even considering the question a scant few hours ago.

Junk Food Junkies

Under new guidelines from the United States Department of Agriculture, schools will have to offer healthier snacks beginning with the 2014-2015 school year. The regulations, titled 'Smart Snacks for Schools' basically eliminate junk foods from school cafeterias and vending machines.

This is an assault on freedom, plain and simple. Does that sound like hyperbole? Well, it isn't. If parents don't mind their kids eating whatever they want, providing it isn't immediately dangerous or stupid, then it isn't any business of government. Especially the federal Department of Agriculture; aren't they supposed to be concerned with the quality of food products as they are produced and sold rather than with who consumes them? Even that is more of a threat than people realize, but it at least allows, for now, those who want salty snacks to have them.

It is or will be argued that it is in the best interests of the nation to do this. To be fair, that might be true. A healthier people would be a better people. Yet when people are, not quite compelled, yes, but certainly stigmatized by an agent of government to eat yogurt or granola rather than Fritos, are we really that far from being told that if you don't eat right, no health care for you?

That's the real threat: small and almost innocuous encouragement now (eat fruit) can develop into you don't get the best medical care you can when you're 50 because your high blood pressure is your fault you moron and the rest of us (society) don't have to help you.

The solution? Private schools and private health care. If someone wants to eat poorly yet can be encouraged through a market approach to take better care of themselves by simply allowing medical insurers to charge higher premiums to higher risks, if schools were not under the domain of government, freedom would be rightly expanded. As it is, far too many citizens will merely nod their heads and quietly agree that eating healthy is everyone's business anyway. That attitude will last only until their way of life becomes questioned similarly.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps by then they will be completely indoctrinated, and will accept that they have earned the punishment they receive. Big Brother will indeed have won, and be loved at the same time.