So I am a picky eater and a food snob. But not by choice.
I was traveling recently and ended up quite ill. I was eating fried chicken, french fries, sausage and hash browns, ice cream, potato chips, soda, hamburgers… likely your typical American diet or at least what every child seems to eat, and every cart at the grocery seems to be filled with these foods. I was sick of it. At restaurants, I wanted something like: grilled wheat panini with grilled veggies and chicken, or baby green salad with vinaigrette and heirloom tomatoes. (See, sounds food-snobbish) but the best I could find was burgers and ranch-iceberg salad. Oh pooh-pooh you may say, stop being such an elitist.
But let me delve into the reason behind what some may call “food snob”.
I can’t remember who told me as a child “you get out what you put into your body. And you only get one body so treat it right.” But it stuck with me. Sure I ate my share of birthday cake, hot dogs and the like, but I equally relished fresh picked berries, some honey on wheat toast, or a nice crisp salad.
You could always get me to eat my veggies as a child. This started in infancy when my mom refused to buy “that processed crap” aka jarred baby food. So she would make meals and grind it up for me to munch on. Later on, I had to beg to eat top ramen or boxed macaroni and cheese, things my own friends lived off of.
In college, I entered a whole new world of food. Without a vehicle, sufficient money, and over a mile away from any restaurant or grocery store, I had to rely on the school cafeteria 24-7. To cut costs and boost efficiency, the cafeteria made foods with cheap, unpronounceable-ingredient products, monosodium glutamate, etc. Nothing was fresh except for the occasional stir fry which had on-their-last day, waxy vegetables. I had to eat fried chicken, starchy noodles with sauce, cookies, and pepsi because that is all there was. I became depressed both physically and mentally. I would contract upper respiratory infections 3-5 times a year, my skin was oily, I slept many many hours a day. The food was slowly killing me and I was unaware.
I found out I had intolerance to msg (monosodium glutamate) after college, when I was at work and had forgotten my lunch so I visited the vending machine and had two bags of msg-laden chips. Two hours later, I had a migraine so severe that I vomited from the pain and began to look back of the day’s food, research it a little, and test my theory which was proven a few migraines later.
My health had began to improve slightly after college as I was engaged and my fiancé would often make home cooked meals- without msg. My depression subsided and I only had respiratory infections 1-2 times a year.
As I write this and it will surely become outdated, I am expecting my first child. Right before pregnancy, my husband and I experimented while shopping at Trader Joes and bought organic beef, eggs, and bananas. What a taste explosion! I had wondered why I enjoyed bananas as a small child but did no longer- through pesticides and the like, they had become chalky behemoths not worthy of my time. And the organic beef and eggs tasted like….beef and eggs! So we began to introduce more organic foods into our diet. Until you’ve tasted a fresh-picked organic strawberry, you’ve never had strawberries. Little did I know at that moment, it was doctor-recommended.
When I visited my doctor, he suggested I look up BPA’s in plastics, the harms of Teflon, pesticides used to produce corn syrup, and organic eating. So I now look at the little numbers on plastic to avoid the most harmful ones (it is impossible to avoid all plastic) and I do what I can to avoid corn syrup. Just recently, I was having some gastrointestinal problems and my doctor suggested a gluten free diet. So, more food is banned from my diet, but I hope to feel better soon.
So you see, I have to be a food snob. I can’t just chow down on a fast food burger, processed dinner in a box, water in bpa bottles, msg-laden foods, gmo/pesticidal products, milk (ok I can have it in moderation but I am lactose intolerant), or even wheat or rye. It is not easy and I have to cheat sometimes; if it is 9pm and I’ve yet to have dinner, I have to have fast food. If I go to someone’s birthday party, I have to have a bite of the 100-ingredient cake. I can’t be a food snob too much as it is inconvenient or makes people think I’m too snooty. And I certainly tire of checking labels of everything I eat and sometimes finding no substitute for a food I want. But I do what I can to eat at home, and eat healthy. If I know the food I eat took minimal steps from the soil to my hands, I know it is good. If it tastes good- and you learn what good is when you eat healthy- eat it. Your body and taste buds will thank you.
