Food, Glorious Food

[vovat]

J. K. Rowling once wrote that she liked stories where the author would tell you what everyone was eating. In the essay by C. S. Lewis about writing for children that's reproduced in my copy of the Chronicles of Narnia, he mentions how someone who read an early draft of the part of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe where Lucy has tea with Tumnus pointed out how he said a lot about what they ate and drank. There are several mentions in the Lewis Carroll's Alice books about how Alice was interested in what everyone lived on. I recently re-read L. Frank Baum's The Magical Monarch of Mo, which is about a country where it rains lemonade and snows popcorn, and a lot of the landscape is made up of candy. Locations in Super Mario World include the Donut Plains, Vanilla Dome, and Chocolate Island. And, of course, Candy Land has been a popular children's game for ages. So why is everyone so obsessed with food? Some critics would say that it's specifically a children's thing, but I'm not so sure. I know I have somewhat of an obsession with food, and I don't even eat that much. I just think a lot about food, even when I'm not hungry. Is it because food is such a unifying factor in human life (since, after all, everyone needs to do it)? Or is there a particular connection between food and fantasy?

While on the subject, I must say that I have pretty childish tastes in food. That's not to say that my tastes haven't matured somewhat, but I still prefer to eat the same kinds of things I did when I was a kid. I'll no longer complain if my food at a restaurant comes with a salad, but I won't go out of my way to order a salad, either. When I order a burger or a chicken sandwich, I'll ask them to leave off the lettuce, tomatoes, and such. I'll EAT lettuce and tomatoes, but I don't want them to ruin the taste of the meat. While I can't eat as much candy and cake as I used to be able to, I drink a lot of sweet beverages. I love fruit juice, lemonade, and fruit punch. I've never really developed a taste for, say, liver and onions, or cole slaw, or coffee, or wine, or really spicy foods (although I'm willing to eat a little more from this category than I was when I was younger). Perhaps none of this is all that unusual, but it often seems like most adults like fancier foods than I do.

I really do need more vegetables and other healthy things in my diet, but, in addition to the fact that I don't like them that much, there's the matter of laziness. Unless someone else is cooking, I'll often just heat up some frozen food. The only two things I can cook are spaghetti and omelettes. I'd like to learn how to cook more things, but I'm not really sure how to go about it. Anyway, is there a cheap, easy way to make my diet a little more healthy?

Comments

[travspence.livejournal.com]

One of the (relatively few) things I was disappointed about in the movie version of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" was that they didn't show a lot of the food. Lewis went into such rich detail about all the great Narnia food in the books I was looking forward to seeing it.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's pretty much true, although they DID have Lucy and Tumnus discussing sardines. I guess there's only so much you can fit into a movie, though.

[twobitme.livejournal.com]

There's definitely no cheap easy way to make the diet healthier. You could start by picking up a week's worth of a fruit you definitely like. I've learned that if I buy it myself, I tend to eat it more. I'm up to a piece for lunch and dinner 5 days a week, and feel odd if I don't.

I also eat yogurt at least once a day, if not twice. It cures my need for something sweet, and is supposed to help digestion and weight loss/hunger control.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I've always liked yogurt, actually, and I'll eat it pretty often. I like fruit, too, but since I'm usually away from home for most of the week, I tend not to buy much of it. It goes bad too quickly, and I don't always want to have to eat, say, a whole basket of strawberries over a single weekend.

[twobitme.livejournal.com]

I definitely had to change my habits to include them, too. I was usually a frozen food/noodle bowl type, but realized it was costly and just not very healthy. So now I take the time out on the weekend, and prepare something healthy that can last the entire week, split it up into servings and freeze the servings.

I avoid the fruits that go bad quickly. Lots of apples and pears in my diet because I can let them sit out without feeling too bad.

And so far, it's worked incredibly well.

[zimbra1006.livejournal.com]

I am also obsessed with food and like hearing about it. Even though I like a lot more variety than I did when I was a kid, my tastes are still pretty simple/child-like for the most part. Some of my favorite foods have always been things like peanut butter sandwiches, mac & cheese, (veggie) burgers, apple pie (or other apple flavored things), and huge glasses of milk. And ordering at a restaurant is always something of an embarrassing ordeal because of how much I usually specify for them to leave off. I used to hate all spicy food (even mild salsa on my burrito was too much for me!) but I have developed a particular fondness for Thai food, especially coconut milk curry. That's one of the few exceptions to my non-spicy rule, though.

Anyway! I'm really lazy about cooking too, which is why I usually make a sandwich for lunch (plus snacks like granola bars, yogurt, fruit, etc.), and cook up either a quick stir fry or some frozen "meat" + rice for dinner. I used to make stir fry with fresh vegetables but it was a) too expensive, b) too time consuming, and c) they'd go bad before I could eat them. Now I usually buy frozen ones, which I guess have less nutritional value but whatever, it's still a vegetable. Just add a little soy sauce and some tofu or other protein and you've got a pretty decent dinner.

Other easy options are soups from a can or package, or if you want to stick with frozen foods they do have somewhat healthier options that include vegetables like rice or noodle bowls, so it's not all macaroni or salisbury steak or whatever. :) Also, do you have a Trader Joe's near you? They have all kinds of great frozen foods; my diet is almost entirely TJ-filled now. I really love their frozen pastas, which have the sauce and everything in the package; they heat up quickly, are pretty healthy, and are really tasty, too. And they're cheap compared to most other places. Or whichever store you're in, if you hunt around in the frozen aisle you'll probably find some more healthy, vegetable-including options you might have overlooked.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I know how that is about ordering at restaurants. I usually try to just get things where I know I won't have a problem with any of the ingredients, so as not to make things too complicated. There have been several occasions where my order must have been confused somewhere along the line, like when I ordered a bacon cheeseburger with no extras at Ruby Tuesday, and they left off the bacon as well. Obviously, if I hadn't wanted the bacon, I wouldn't have ordered a BACON cheeseburger!

I should probably eat more soup. I do eat a lot of frozen pot pies, which contain vegetables, but I don't know that there's much nutrition left in them after all the processing they go through.

I don't think there's a Trader Joe's near me. It doesn't sound familiar.

I tend to shy away from fake meat products, but I wouldn't be too surprised that they've improved a great deal since those gross "Harvest Burgers" that my dad used to eat during his very brief semi-vegetarian phase.

[zimbra1006.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they're a lot better than they used to be, but some fake meat products can still be gross. I wasn't necessarily suggesting you try them, just telling what I eat, which you could substitute with some other protein like real meat if you wanted. :)

Mm, pot pies are good. Now I want one. I'm not sure they're all that healthy for you though, as you mentioned.

That's a pretty good cheeseburger story. I actually tend to have problems with cheese when I eat out; I almost always request they leave it off and they almost always put it on. A similarly great one was when I asked for a grilled 3-cheese with no swiss and the waitress repeated back to me, "Okay, all Swiss?"

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Around here, there are some really good pot pies made by a company called Myers. I don't think they have them in other parts of the country. Actually, I don't think they're quite as good as they used to be, but I still like them. Other kinds of pot pies often seem to skimp on the filling, or to have overly flaky crusts (which I'm sure some people prefer, but I don't). Marie Callendar makes a pretty good pot pie, but since I got sick after eating them on two separate occasions, I tend to avoid them. (I think it easily could have been coincidence both times, especially since one of them was when I was visiting Albuquerque, and I got sick the other time I went there WITHOUT having any pot pies. Still, I guess it's best to be on the safe side.)

[jenhime.livejournal.com]

It can be difficult to add enough fruits/veggies in your diet. I'm constantly re-evaluating my fruit/veg intake. :\

I'm super-lazy when it comes to cooking, so I like to have bags of frozen veggies on hand to fill the veg gap in meals. It's not exciting, but it works. I don't think you actually lose that much nutrionally by freezing; it's more of the cooking method that causes the loss. (Stir-frying should keep most of the nutritional value though.)

As far as fresh veggies go, carrots and celery can last for while in the fridge. (Put the celery in water if it starts to look limp.) And they're tasty "as is", with peanut butter or ranch dressing, or chopped up and cooked in omelets.

I try to keep apples in the house. Mostly because I like apples, but also because they don't go bad quickly. Lately, I've been trying to keep canned fruit in the pantry too (pineapple, pears, etc.). I'm sure it's not as healthy as fresh fruit, but it has to be better than not including enough fruit in my diet -- right?

If you can get them on sale, most berries freeze really well -- although they tend to be a bit mushier and juicier when they thaw. If you freeze them in baggies that have one or two servings in them, it's really easy to add them to cereal/yogurt/whatever.

--And as a big fan of omelets (since I always have eggs on hand), you can always add veggies in them! Even frozen veggies taste good in an omelet. :)

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I'll heat up frozen vegetables occasionally, but I'm often too lazy to bother. I should probably have them more often, since they're pretty easy, and I usually like them fairly well. While I don't love peas or green beans, they're hardly bad either.

My mom buys frozen berries, but the one time I tried them, I didn't think they were very good. Maybe I should have left them more time to defrost.