Food Journals

The Late 70's

When I wrote in my journals during my grade school years, I didn't know the basic rules about keeping one. I didn't know there were any actual rules (I still don't, actually), so I just wrote about whatever my day consisted of, including meals.

I would share my journals now and then, with a few close friends and even one or two English teachers. One teacher laughed, lightly, not in a mean way, when she read what I had eaten for dinner. I didn't know that writing about what I ate was "weird." It's interesting to me, now, to read over what my mother used to make us for dinner - fried chicken or pork chops, baked potatoes, burritos with ground beef, tempura, enchiladas, navy bean soup in a crock pot - or what my siblings and I used to snack on during summer vacations when we weren't taking swim lessons - tomatoes, cold cereal, potato chips, iceberg lettuce rolls dipped in dressing, an entire package of bacon from the freezer . . . ("No wonder your little brother is always so hyper!" my youth minister's wife had exclaimed when I admitted this part about our home-alone diet).

2008

Today, for breakfast:
-half fat-free milk and half chocolate soy milk tempered in the microwave to chase down my multi-vitamin
-a slice of multi grain toast with Skippy peanut butter
-a Boca brand meatless chicken patty
-a packet of instant oatmeal, apple and cinnamon (those kid's portions are so small!)
-coffee and creamer to chase down my glucosamine tablet

For snacks at work:
-cut up watermelon and green grapes

For lunch:
-three scrambled egg whites with a chopped up Morningstar veggie patty mixed in, and yogurt

For dinner? Not sure yet. I'm going to my writers' group meeting tonight, so hopefully I'll be able to figure out a semi-healthy alternative among the Baja Fresh's and KFC's around the neighborhood where I work.

Last night, after jogging around our neighborhood, I enjoyed a healthy dinner of stir fried bean sprouts, green beans, and Morningstar meatless beef strips. Domestic Partner makes this quick and simple meal once a week, usually, and I never get tired of it.

I am not all that noble and healthy about diet and exercise, though. Not always. Just to give you an example, after that tasty and guilt-free meal, and after Domestic Partner had already retired to the bedroom to watch repeats of "Fraiser," I stood in front of our open pantry and ate almost half a bag of Hershey's Kisses with almonds, one of my most impossible-to-resist favorites. I think it took me the length of about three songs to eat that much, songs from Prince's "Batman" album which I had playing in the kitchen to listen to while washing dishes and cleaning up.

The bag of Hershey's Kisses was on sale for $1.37 at Fresh & Easy this week, a price that's just as hard to resist as the sweet treat itself.