I know I should have understood this a lot sooner than just, like, at the end of the current week, but it’s never too late for a bit of self-enlightenment, is it?
The last time I bought my groceries, I was starting to run low on breakfast cereals. As I was walking to the cereals aisle in the little supermarket right under the building where I live (convenient and sometimes too tempting, isn’t it?), I spotted a ’special offer’ for a cereal with ‘two sorts of chocolate’ in it. I’m a sucker for chocolate, but even more when it’s in my breakfast, so of course I was drawn to that like a moth to a flame.
The nutrient/caloric info behind the box wasn’t that great (440 cal. for a 100g serving, holy fattening orgy, Batman!). A first omen sign I shouldn’t have overlooked, I guess. But I still talked myself into buying it, thinking that I could have a small bowl for breakfast once a week or something. To my credit, at least it is a committment I could have kept.
Friday morning, I wanted to have a taste of those cereals newly arrived on my food shelf. I poured myself a bowl, added milk… And I didn’t like it the least bit. It tasted way too sugary to my liking. So sugary, even, that it almost completely hid the tasted of chocolate I wanted way more than just good old saccharose. I still made the effort of finishing my bowl, because I was hungry, but another deception was to await me at the end: it wasn’t filling. At all.
Which of course I should have known as well, right!
That episode is when it dawned on me, and when I took my decision: I won’t eat junk foods that I don’t like, or don’t like much. I’ve done it in the past–eating a crappy cookie because I craved a cookie and it was all I had under the hand, eating at a McDo-wannabe instead of at the real thing (no, really, you think I’d learn, ever?), eating bland-tasting milk chocolate when actually I wanted black… It’s never the same. Never. And if I get into the mood of ‘I deserve a treat’, then from now on this treat has better be damn tasty. I’m even willing to shell out a couple of extra bucks to get that high-quality chocolate bar o’doom, and let it throw a little orgy in my mouth for ten minutes. That way, it will really be worth it, it will really be a treat, and it won’t happen too often, since it’s harder to get those nice snacks than to get the basic, crappy ones.
As for the cereals box? I’m still reluctant to throw out food that hasn’t gotten a chance at growing green, mouldy or otherwise stale–at being eaten before that, that is–so I brought the box to a couple of friends who usually like sugary treats. It wasn’t bad (hey, I don’t give bad food to my friends, after all!), just too sugary for me. They, well, maybe they’ll like it. If they don’t, I’ll happily take the box out of their hands and pour it in the trashcan myself like a big girl.
After all, there is no point in eating something we don’t like, and all the more if it fits into the ‘junk food’ category.
(Please note that no matter what, I’ll eat vegetables and healthy foods which I’m not a fan of all the same. I don’t like lettuce in itself, for instance, but it’s perfectly okay if I eat it with a small bit of camembert cheese or other vegetables I like. And so on. For this, I’m willing to make the effort, if only at times.)
