I regret to inform you that I did not go grocery shopping yesterday. In fact, I had probably one of the worst eating days that I’ve had in about two weeks. I think I know the end is near…….
Anyhoo, I will be going shopping today. I am beginning to hear crickets in my refrigerator and that means it’s time to stock up. The good news is I didn’t have much food to begin with since it was coming around to being time for me to get groceries so I didn’t have much to throw out. A strange thing happens to me when I see money that I’ve spent in the trash. I get all woozy.
I am going to be researching some recipes today. Gotta have a game plan I guess. I don’t want to just buy a bunch of stuff and then go “Now what?”. I hate planning though. I am such a spontaneous person and I’d rather get a root canal than sit down and plan a menu for the ten days and find recipes and write down ingredients to buy. It all seems so, I don’t kow, tedious. I would rather be knitting or playing family feud on Facebook. But I digress.
I am not so much concerned about the children and I during the day. My daughter is breastfed and I don’t really cook for my sons when we are home. They ususally eat things like cereal, yogurt, fruit, PB&J sandwiches. On the rare occasions that I make breakfast we’ll have pancakes, made from scratch, sausage and eggs. I may have to make a few tweaks to what we consume during the day but not much. It’s dinner that I am worried about. That and Mr. Sawyers.
Ah, Mr. Sawyers. My darling husband. A man who once said that his idea of a salad is lettuce on his burgers. And he wasn’t kidding. He hardly ever eats vegetables. He loves fast food. He loves sweets. Oddly enough he is significantly thinner than me and actually weighs LESS than he did when we got married 6 years ago. Is this some kind of cosmic joke? I used to make vegetables when we first got married but I got tired of throwing an almost entirely full pot in the trash (the woozy thing again) when he wouldn’t eat them. So I just stopped making them. He is your quintessential “meat and potatoes” type of guy. When I told him about the challenge he said “That’s great, you’re doing it right?” I had to practically debase myself to get him to climb aboard with me (remeber the whole “two shall become one flesh thing”. Ring a bell?)
Another thing to call into consideration is we are African American. What does that have to do with anything, you ask? Everything. Let’s do a little experiment. What kind of people come to your mind when you think of people talking about “eating healthy”, “all natural foods”, and “no processed foods”? Usually white, upper middle class families with 2.5 kids in the burbs that drive hybrids. Either that or like long haired hippies who keep their pee in jars for their gardens……..whatever. What I’m trying to say is that you usually don’t associate healthy eating with the African American community. Our idea of a healthy meal is a fried chicken breast instead of a fried chicken wing. And because of this, we, as a people, are paying dearly.
My husband took a health class and the statistics were astounding for African Americans. We have the highest obesity rates (guilty), the highest mortality rates, we live less, we eat more, exercise less, we have the highest instance of diabetes, heart disease, stroke and we only make up 13% of the population. When my husband took the class, he began to really become gung ho about his health, started going to the gym more regularly, eating healthier. But this was right before the dreaded holidays, every dieter’s nightmare. I told him not to go crazy because it will make it that much harder for him to get back on the wagon but did he heed the advice of the wise, old, fat sage? No, and now he is back where he started, eating like crap. Maybe this challenge with show us that eating right is not only doable, but no that bad.
I mean there are still things I am leery about. We are no millionares and no matter how you slice it, the less processed the food, the more expensive. The process is what makes it so cheap. We live on one income, a very modest one at that, in a small, one-bedroom apartment in San Diego. Expensive-behind San Diego. We drive a 14-year-old Ford Thunderbird that was lovingly given to us by some dear friends at our church because we didn’t have a car for almost a year . And I wish I could say we had no car because we were trying to “go green”. We had no car because we couldn’t afford one. So shucking out extra money on groceries is no novel concept to me. But as a wise person once said to me, you either pay for it now in grocery bills, or you pay for it later in medical bills and/or funeral costs. Personally, I’d rather buy the $4 bread.
Well, I have rambled long enough. I am supposed to be mapping out my game plan, not rambling on WordPress. I will report the staggering cost later. Until then.
Process of Elimination 