Maybe it’s the holiday season, but food has been on our minds lately. Isn’t it funny how everyone has different tastes and food philosophies? While none of us are vegan or gluten-intolerant, we still have unique perspectives on food. Cindy loves chocolate above all else–Sleeping Booty can’t stand it. Yet, somehow…we’re all still friends.
I love food. That’s always been true, but up until relatively recently, I wasn’t as keen about cooking. Now I love them both. When I moved out of the dorms in college I, naturally, had to start cooking for myself. But my college-student budget was a bit constricting—I didn’t buy the kind of yogurt I really wanted, or any meat besides frozen chicken breasts, or even most spices, because I was trying hard to save money. Now, though, I enjoy indulgences like the occasional avocado or steak, along with figuring out fun new ways to prepare them. I’ll be honest, Pinterest has played a big part in my transition from an eater to a cook. It’s just so wonderfully easy to scroll through a page or two and discover new recipes!
I’ve become more adventurous over the years, too. My tolerance for spicy food has increased (I actually like jalapenos!) and ethnic restaurants no longer scare me (at least as much). In the past few weeks I’ve rediscovered my love of Thai food and successfully made two yummy Thai dishes: Beef Larb and Butternut Squash Curry. Living abroad has, no doubt, impacted both my tastes and my creativity when it comes to cooking. As I’ve described before, when the grocery options are limited, sometimes you have to come up with substitutes, or try new things altogether. No pork or alcohol allowed? No problem—I’ll figure something out.
Even if I lived alone, I know I would cook for myself, because I genuinely enjoy it. Food is just connected to so many memories, and every new recipe is like a little challenge—I have to see if I can do it! Last week we had 15-20 people over for Thanksgiving dinner, and even though it was a potluck I roasted three turkeys and made mashed potatoes, mashed squash, cranberry sauce, gravy, an apple pie, a pumpkin pie, and stuffing…just because I wanted to. All in all, I’d say cooking for myself has been one of my favorite parts of adulthood, maybe because it’s something I can control, yet it’s challenging enough to be rewarding (and delicious) when I succeed.
–Cinderslut
So… I’m not really into food, like at all. Naturally I love a good meal and have favorite tastes that I enjoy, but in general food is an annoying necessity in my life; a waste of my time that I’d rather not have to deal with.
For me, eating a few slices of cheese and a tortilla cold is 95% as good as making a quesadilla, and throwing some butter on a bit of boiled pasta is just as great as a full spaghetti marinara. Sure, I appreciate that the fancy dishes people spend time to make do indeed taste a bit better, but they rarely taste ENOUGH better to warrant the time spent on them. Coming home after work to an hour of preparing, a half hour of eating and another hour of cleanup is NOT what I want to spend my life doing. Even eating out with the professionals never really seems worth it to me – sure the food tastes good, but so does microwave popcorn that is done in 50 seconds. Wouldn’t you rather spend money on an adventure than fancy sauces and flavorings?!
Healthy eating I get, because it’s clear that I feel better and can accomplish more when my body is sufficiently fueled. And baking is awesome, because every once in a while a special occasion just calls for pie and cupcakes. I even understand cooking as a fun activity to do with other people, anything with friends I’m up for. But as an every day, or even every week, thing – taste-based cooking isn’t for me. Sure, when I get older I’ll have to be responsible for the meals of people besides just me, and I’ll probably do a little more than steam some broccoli and scramble some eggs 5 times a week, but I’m not looking forward to it. I like that my tastes are simple and cheap, and I like that when I get home from work tonight I’ll have time to cross things off my to do list.
–Sleeping Booty
This question comes at a slightly ironic time for me, as I have been very busy for the last week and currently have nothing in my fridge other than a tub of hummus and some whole milk. I seriously need to go shopping because for breakfast I had to scavenge the ‘common food’ cupboard in my house– and ate the only thing I could find which was a bread product of some sort from Sweden that was basically the butts of bread loaves all dried up. Yeah…
Generally, however, I try to do better with food than this, and a trip to the grocery store is definitely on my to-do list for today. As far as my ‘food philosophy’ goes, I was actually having a conversation a few days ago about this very subject! For me, my philosophy tends to focus around moderation. I tend to think that my diet is pretty varied, and I make a point to eat a good portion of different vegetables. I eat most things and don’t really have a banned list (with the single exception of artificial sugars). I am not opposed to pizza, or ice-cream, or chocolate cake. I guess for me the issue is just that I don’t eat any of those things every day. A treat is different than a habit, and I try not to let those foods become daily habits.
But yeah it’s not that hard of a line. Really, I believe food is there a thing for us to enjoy, but not to idolize. I try to be flexible especially on trips, or even just in life–when you never know what the food options will be, so sometimes you just go with the flow.
–The Little Merskank
My eating habits have changed drastically over the last year. It used to be that I ate whatever I wanted, and that included a ton of carbohydrates and cheese. I would definitely say my diet was not very healthy. I didn’t gorge myself on junk food and soda, but my diet was heavily unbalanced. Though I liked fruits and vegetables fine, I didn’t eat much of them. However, as followers of this blog might know—I recently went through the process of losing 35 pounds. Now of course this included a lot of exercise, but it also included an intense diet change. For about 2 months I estimate that I mostly kept myself to about 800 calories a day. I almost cut out bread completely, and my diet mainly consisted of fresh spinach and hummus rolled up in sliced turkey.
However, now that I’ve lost the weight and am just trying to maintain, I’m not quite as strict. I still eat well, only having lean meats and cutting out bread when I can. I almost never make sandwiches with two slices of bread anymore, it’s always one. But one thing I won’t do anymore is limit myself when we go out to eat. I don’t worry about eating a ton of calories at a restaurant because I know I’m healthy most of the time. And it usually works out ok anyway because after the change my stomach only holds about half of what it used to, and my body doesn’t accept too much of a rich food anyway. It’s actually crazy because my favorite food of all time is macaroni and cheese and there is a bar by our house that makes it really good. But a couple of weeks I went there and ordered it and it was so fatty and heavy that after about three bites I couldn’t do any more. The sheer vastness of fat was grossing me out. What they say about American portion sizes is all true. No body should recognize that as a correct portion size to be eaten in one sitting.
Now that I’ve made the switch to healthier eating, my body reacts badly when I feed it an overabundance of crappy food. I will still eat pizza and burgers, but if I overfill myself on those fatty foods, I always regret it later because there is a ton of digestion pain. I like that my body does this though, because it means my body is on my side and fighting for me to be healthy too.
–Snow Whore