At What Cost? Part 1 of 3

This week at work I’ve turned down cupcakes, cookies, birthday cake, brownies and monkey bread, in favor of cucumber spears, cauliflower florets or nothing at all. Not because I didn’t want to eat every last bite, but because none of them are healthy. So I munched on my veggies and pretended I couldn’t smell the cinnamon goodness wafting over my desk.

Having fresh vegetables and fruit at my disposal adds up quickly. I buy frozen items on a regular basis but its difficult to find packaged sans salt added. I have spent much time rummaging through the freezer section of grocery stores, trying in vain to find something with no cheese sauce, no ‘special seasonings’ (i.e. salt) added and nothing with a high sugar content. This excludes some though leaves me several choices but again, it does add up.

I’d commented to my mom I understand why the country is getting fatter. Poor eating choices are definitely a factor, laziness too, but I think what gets overlooked is the cost. I had the following discussion with my friend Jennifer as she was preparing a peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwich at her desk which is much easier on the wallet than my mixed field greens: $7 will get you a 2 liter of pop, a loaf of white bread, a package of lunch meat and a bag of chips; lunch for the work week. That same $7 covered my low-fat sour cream (small size) and low sodium shredded cheddar (small bag) and lasted two days.  A large bag of pasta is $0.89, a can of generic spaghetti sauce is $2 and there’s dinner for a few days. My ground, organic chicken is $1.10 a pound, I don’t buy pasta but my spaghetti sauce is over $4 a jar.

This isn’t bragging I’m envious! Truly, there are times I wish I didn’t care about my health; I’d ignore the swollen legs, clothes no longer fitting, disregard fat content, sodium count, eat a big bowl of ice cream and sugar count be damned! Its cheaper and less effort to be fat than it is to use some thought when making food selections. And I won’t even touch on using food stamps in this post (that’s part 2) but let me say I’ve been behind many people paying with food stamps while they unload their carts and its usually items like Sugar Smacks, Froot Roll-Ups, Bagel Bites, Doritos and cases of Mountain Dew. I get it, its tastes better (more on this in part 3). But I also look at the people unloading these carts and most are quite overweight; no judgment, I’m overweight too.

I was unloading my basket of vitamins and a large bottle of water onto Fry’s conveyor belt last month and a large man on a scooter asked if I could help him unload his items. I gladly did so because I was raised right but I saw why he couldn’t unload his items. The roll of fat was already over the handle bars and reaching the conveyor belt would push into his diaphragm and cut off his breathing. I didn’t know the man; maybe he has health problems that cause his obesity. But even without an M.D. after my name I could see part of the issue was what I’d unloaded. Little Debbie snack cakes, Pillsbury cookie dough and a container of fried chicken from the deli. It smelled fantastic! I bid him a good day and went to the gym.

Today's glaringly big lie: Healthy food will be just as satisfying as junk food.