Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Warning: FOOD PHOBIA

AFRAID OF FOOD

I know, you wouldn’t know it by looking at me. As a healthy, active, yet curvaceous young woman of 28, I have never been known to miss a meal. But lately, I’ve been more and more bothered by a looming question: Will my food kill me?

In a bizarre habit I think I have in common only with my dog, I have a history of eating the same exact thing, in the same exact amount, every day:

I start with a ½ cup of Quaker oatmeal sprinkled with a tablespoon of brown sugar, which I heat up in a Tupperware in the microwave at work. I follow that with a light Yoplait flavored yogurt at 10:30 a.m. as a snack. Then for lunch, a can of tuna in water with Light Miracle Whip, French’s mustard and dill relish with six multi-grain Saltines. I complement this nastiness with a piece of seasonal fruit and wash it all down with some Crystal Light.

At around 3:30 p.m., I eat a 100-calorie bag of microwave popcorn, and hold on for dear life until dinner rolls around. And the whole day, I’m sipping from my battered Nalgene bottle, drinking about 60 ounces of water during the day.

Sounds pretty healthy, right? I thought so too, until all these bastards in the media had to tell me the facts about what I was eating.  

In the past two years, I have learned that nearly every single thing in that daily diet, if consumed enough, will kill me.

The first hubbub was about tuna. OK, aside from the fact that what comes out of those 50-cent cans looks and smells a lot like catfood, I always figured I hated it, so it has to be good for you. Plus, it’s a low-fat, cheap source of fantastic lean protein.

Then I learn that the water those fishies are swimming in is polluted, so they’ve been steadily accumulating mercury in their bodies, which they store and pass along to us. 

Before this, the only thing I knew about Mercury was that it is perhaps the most awesome substance on earth. I remember breaking a thermometer once in the sink and I pushed around the stuff for about a half hour. I was enthralled.

But, apparently, it’s particularly bad for women and kids, and your body stockpiles it instead of flushing it, which is bad.

Well, I thought, it gives me another excuse to add to my anti-baby rhetoric:

“Kids? Umm, no, sorry – I have about a half pound of mercury stored in my body from 10 years of eating canned tuna every day for lunch – not exactly a baby-friendly zone anymore.”

So I never liked tuna anyway. But yogurt to me, is the perfect food. A good balance of carbs, protein, calcium, with a dollop of fruit mixed in. Perfect. Until I got the news that the milk used to make my delicious Yoplait is full of hormones they pump the cows with to make them produce more milk. Then of course there’s the fact that “light” yogurts are sweetened with aspartame, which is about as good for you as arsenic.

So by not wanting to consume as much sugar as what’s in a half-can of regular soda, I get cancer instead. Nice. By the way, this one kills two birds with one stone, since the Crystal Light that I consume by the pitcher is also sweetened with that artificial shit. But it is yummy.

Moving on, with the worst blow to my day: Microwave popcorn has a cocktail of carcinogens in every delicious bag. Apparently the materials these dipshits put on the bags to prevent the cancer-causing artificial butter from soaking through the bag rubs off onto the popcorn and can also cause cancer.

So, as I’m reading this one, (because I didn’t believe the fat jerk at my office who snidely told me my favorite 100-calorie snack would kill me as he munched on his second helping of Doritos that day) I find out that they don’t know how much rubs off on the popcorn, but it probably take a lot to make you sick, so don’t worry about it. Little do they know I eat it every day, and when I’m done with the popcorn, I take my finger and rub off all that artificial butter crap so I can be as disgusting as possible while getting the full cancer-causing effects.

The least of my worries is probably the piece of fruit. Yes, I know that it’s bathed in pesticide perfection, waxed down so it doesn’t wither and then shipped sometimes half the world away to reach me, but if a damn piece of fruit is going to be the thing that does me in, so be it.

The last thing I learned led to my new belief that everything we classify as a modern convenience is the devil. Including the plastic containers in which we store our food and drink. When they get warm or old, they like to release harmful chemicals into the food and drink, just to teach us a lesson about innovation.

So all that water I’ve drank out of my decade-old bottle? Cancer. And it’s supposed to be particularly bad if you leave it in a hot car. Which was ALWAYS for the three-and-a-half years I lived in Florida. In fact, I would even drink the hot water that had been roasting in the bottle for hours in the car. Nothing like hot, leeched chemicals to quench your thirst in 98-degree heat.

Ever hear that ignorance is bliss? I couldn’t agree more when it comes to this subject. I mean really, how are you supposed to eat anything? Everything is processed or mass-produced in a way that is most likely unhealthy. I don’t exactly have a banana tree out back with chickens and turkeys wandering around, waiting to be slaughtered. So what are we to do?

This last weekend, the health-food-that’s-bad-for-you topic came up as I chatted with my aunt, my cousin and my 92-year-old grandmother (who believes farmers and food manufacturers would never do anything that might compromise your health), and I finally reached a conclusion.

My grandmother still runs her entire farm in Nebraska by herself at 92. She has lived a long, healthy, disease-free life eating the organic vegetables she grows in her garden, raising hormone-free, antibiotic-free beef and chicken, and working every day with her hands outside in fresh air on her farm.

I, on the other hand, sit on my butt at a desk all day with a sore back, staring at a screen that will no doubt damage my eyesight over time, breathing ventilated air like an animal in captivity.

I have tried the past few months to deviate from my normal menu, but it’s not easy. I admit: my semi-obsessive food routine brings me comfort during my day. It alleviates stress – it reduces any further decisions I have to make. And it just makes me feel better.

So I decided: If the 100-calorie bag of microwave popcorn that brings me 15 minutes of pure bliss every afternoon also brings me the risk of cancer somewhere down the line — I’ll take my chances. And I will not longer be afraid to enjoy every minute of it.

4 comments:

  1. I'm surprise Crystal Light is still on the market. When I was a kid my mom said it was the devil and that if consumed regularly we'd grow horns out of our heads spurt cancer venom at small children and babies.

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  2. I love crystal light too.
    A lot of this stuff can be easily corrected though. Yes, you don't want to be eating canned tuna every day. (I'd say you've probably had your lifetime fill of mercury already.) As far as the microwave popcorn...you can make your own popcorn on the stove and put it in a plastic baggie (after it's cooled down) to take to work. Much less expensive too.
    Also, never microwave anything in plastic. Take a glass bowl with you to work for your oatmeal. Of course you don't want to stress out about everything you put into your mouth. But you can start by just making some small easy changes.

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  3. Nice advice, Modern Mamma. ;) You're always so helpful.

    Now Kat, write me a new blog! I see you in less than two weeks!

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  4. Woah. That was pushy. Sorry. In case you didn't know, I'm rather excited to see you.

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