A generic adult female considers adding more healthy foods to her ‘diet.’
I recently read an article about healthful food—thanks to the regime of the thin, we are bombarded with instructions on what to eat, and how good for us certain disgusting foods are. The article listed several “power” foods and I glanced through them (I reduced the fat in the article by skimming it) and thought to myself, well, maybe I ought to eat more of these foods, if only to increase my power—hey, it worked for Popeye.
Number one on the list was tomatoes. ICK! Not even smothered in chocolate sauce. The only thing a tomato is good for is throwing at a bad performance artist (“bad performance artist” is redundant. Discuss). All right, I do eat spaghetti sauce, ketchup (not plain) and chili, but in any other form, I shy away and make the sign of the cross. I’d wear garlic to fend off the evilness of the tomato, but then people might think that I cook.
Bell peppers—same category as tomatoes. Not just bell peppers either, I don’t like all kinds. If you have to wear gloves when messing with it, as some of those potent little chilies require, you shouldn’t be putting it in your mouth. I worked in a Chinese restaurant once, and would eat dinner with the staff after the place closed. I was the only person of non-Asiatic ancestry, the lone English-as-my-first-and-only-language speaker, the only female (that’s another story) and I didn’t know a lot about real Chinese food (as opposed to what was served to the paying customers). One of the other workers put something on my bowl of rice and told me to eat it. I did, and, oh-my-swearing-euphemisms, my mouth felt like a gaping maw of lava, a pit of pyrotechnics, the portal to Hell itself. He had offered a pepper and I—my trusting self—had bitten into it, proving once again, that I should avoid people altogether and become a crazy baglady with too many cats because I always end up getting burned—and this time, literally. So, no thanks, with an emphasized exclamation point, to peppers.
Berries—now this is more like it. Strawberries and chocolate: heavenly! I had a chocolate fondue at my wedding reception with juicy strawberries for dipping. Sadly, as I was a guest of honor, I was busy meeting the husband’s many relatives and didn’t get as much time to make friends with the buffet as I would have liked. My aunt finally fixed me a plate and brought it to me and that was my only taste of the fondue. But it is fondly remembered!
Soy nuts. I wonder how these would taste with chocolate. Might they be an adequate substitute for Peanut M&Ms? I do like a salty/chocolate combination, so if the soy nuts were adequately salted, it just might work.
Yogurt. Sadly, the chocolate yogurt isn’t truly yogurt, with all its apparently many health benefits. Key lime Custard-style Yoplait might taste good, if spread on a Hershey bar…
Spinach. Yes, it worked for Popeye, but I don’t plan on trying to win Olive Oyl back from Bluto by knocking him senseless with a couple of left hooks and breaking a parlor chair over his head. Spinach is soggy and wouldn’t work as a filling for a bonbon.
Broccoli florets dipped in chocolate—nope. Not only would it be an egregious offense to the palate, but it would look like rabbit pellets.
Wild Salmon. Why wild? Must I go out to the Pacific Northwest, find a stream leaping with ferocious pescoids, catch one (do I go for the rod and reel, or do I mimic the grizzly bear and get in the river on all fours and sink my teeth into the nearest passing Oncorhynchus nerka?) and devour it raw on the banks of said stream? Or do they mean sit at a stuffy company holiday dinner with a lousy band and a cheesy magic act for entertainment, dressed in sweat-stained black taffeta and cubic zirconia, and eat the fish, chunked, mixed with Miracle Whip and scallions, off of tiny shards of cardboard? Because neither way sounds remotely appealing. Unless the dinner included assorted chocolate truffles.
OK, so I’m not about to start eating all this stuff. Pass me the vitamins and some chocolate syrup, please.
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