Bleagh!

I hate food.  I used to love to cook and was a competent cook. Now I hate the whole process of deciding what to eat and how to fix it.

I don’t know exactly my attitude changed.  Maybe it was after multiple attempts at failed diets.  Is it too high in fat?  Is there too much sugar?  What about the carb count?  Where did it come from and how was it treated before it landed on my plate?  Will it make me fatter if I eat it?  Will it upset my stomach? What is the impact on the environment if I use plastic untensils? and so forth and so on ad nauseum.

What is even more aggravating is to be around people who can’t eat without analyzing every bite that goes into their mouths.  My boss lost 40 pounds last year and looks great but to sit down and have lunch with her is pure torture.  If it’s not organic she won’t eat it.   If we order out she won’t participate.  If a company rep brings lunch she makes a big deal out of where the food comes from.  If she “slips” and has a bite of chocolate or a cookie she moans and angsts about it.  ”Oh, why did I eat that?  It has so many artificial ingredients in it!  It’s full of junk!”  She makes New York cheesecake for every special occasion and is insulted if we tell her we want something else. (My co-workers and I have started calling it “the fucking cheesecake.”)  She serves it, makes a big production of having “just a tiny sliver”, and subjects us to a detailed critique of everything she did and did not do while making it.

Another co-worker is just as bad.  She does not use plastic or styrofoam or aluminum foil, brings her food in glass containers with badly fitting lids and then has problems with food spilling all over her car or in her backpack.  A drug rep brought lunch last winter and she refused to eat it because the zucchini appetizer was not in season.  If it’s not organic she won’t eat it, either.

Last Saturday I went to a fiber festival with a group of friends, one of which had just joined Weight Watchers.  We were wandering along the line of food vendors talking about what we wanted for lunch.  The WW newbie had to complain about how there was nothing there she could have, that it was all too many “points”.  Someone else had a fight with a lemonade vendor who would not fill her stainless steel water bottle instead of using one of his plastic cups.

I want to yell “Just shut up and eat, dammit!!  Enjoy what is in front of you and quit making a big deal out of it!!!”

Himself is a carnivore. He loves steak and fried chicken.  I can’t abide meat unless it is very highly seasoned or sauced.  We cook separate meals and buy his and her groceries.  I can rarely get him into a restaurant that costs more than $10 per person.  He has never had a home-grown tomato and until I made a batch a few weeks ago he had never had home-made chocolate chip cookies. Working in our little apartment kitchen we are so incompatible and we get in each other’s way so much we have agreed that when one of us is cooking the other stays out of the kitchen.  We have also had to agree that when one of us is cooking the other one will keep his/her mouth shut.  I won’t repeat the details of the disagreement over mincing onions.

Eating with other people used to be a happy social occasion.  There was nothing I liked more than to have friends over for a meal, take something to a potluck, or meet at a nice restaurant. Some of my happiest memories center around working in the kitchen with my mom, grandmother, and aunts at family reunions. I have done none of that in a number of years.  Now eating is something I do while I’m doing something else. I want the fastest, easiest way to keep my gut from growling and to hell with the rest of it.  Something has got to change and I haven’t figured out how or what yet.