If eating healthy is so good for you, why is it so incredibly difficult to do? That is a question I have been asking myself quite a bit lately.
Is it because eating less healthy food is quicker, cheaper, easier? Probably. Or is it because, let’s admit it, the food is just tastier? Most definitely. Serving up a couple of frozen Tony’s pizzas or a “steakum” sandwich for lunch on a Saturday is something I actually consider to be a treat. And who doesn’t want to grab a carton of Houlton Farms Dairy Lemonade on the first day that it hits the store?
And who couldn’t eat a gigantic bowl full of buttered popcorn while watching a movie in the theater or at home?
Growing up, my parents tried their best to get me to eat vegetables, but I wanted no part of it. Even simple veggies like peas and carrots were met with extreme resistance from me as a child. After all, I did not have the luxury of having a dog sitting under the table waiting to be fed.
I recall having supper with my next-door neighbor and his mother served peas. Instead of eating the peas like a normal person, I squished the peas and left the “shell” behind.
Another time, I found I could hide my carrots inside my glass of milk, giving the appearance that I had eaten them. My parents caught on eventually, as all parents do.
When it comes to eating habits, I am by my own admission, a pretty finicky and demanding consumer. As I got older, I joked that I was a “meatatarian” and only wanted meat and potatoes. This does not make things easy for my wife, who has gone above and beyond trying to find ways to inject healthier foods into our diets.
“I am so tired of figuring out what to make for supper,” is a statement commonly uttered in our household. Having two young children who would be perfectly satisfied with mac-n-cheese and chicken nuggets on a regular basis adds to the meal-planning quandary.
My wife has done an admirable job coming up with ways to disguise the healthier foods. For a time, she was consulting with “The Sneak Chef” book on a daily basis to come up with ways to hide nutritional foods into staples of our menu. For a time, it was blending zucchini and cauliflower into a puree to add to the kids’ mac-n-cheese, while other times involved using applesauce in pancake mix or squash in tomato sauce for spaghetti.
I will admit, however, from time to time that I have not been the most gracious recipient of her cooking efforts. I’m sure that only adds to her frustration. I try my best to not make a big production out of a meal I may not care for, but she’s wise to my ways. If I only eat a very small amount of the meal she makes, she knows full well that I will be into something else an hour later.
We have eliminated a great deal of sugar and salt from our daily consumption. We buy many items that are either reduced fat or fat free and changed over to things like “natural” peanut butter. We make salads for lunch on many days, and have switched our snack habits to things higher in protein, but none of these factors, unfortunately, has resulted in a reduction of weight as I had hoped.
Working in an office that likes to have treats probably is part of that problem. It is, after all, awfully hard to resist a box of donut balls or a bag of barbecue chips when they are readily available.
Joseph Cyr is a staff writer for the Houlton Pioneer Times. His opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect that of the newspaper. He can be reached at pioneertimes@nepublish.com or 532-2281.
