Illustration by Jan A. Igoe
Recently, I’ve been advised to rethink my diet. The french fries I fearlessly gobbled as a child would massacre my gallbladder today. And fudge-iced cupcakes, the ultimate reward for kids who made vegetables vanish from their dinner plates, would launch my blood sugar to Mars (even before I got the broccoli out of my pockets).
I’ve already given up soda, red meat and Oreos. I rarely drink alcohol, but let’s face it: ordering nachos without a cold beer would be sacrilege. Mostly, I live on nuts, berries, fish, dark chocolate and pizza. Lots of pizza.
“You’re not diabetic, but your blood sugar is creeping up,” my persnickety doctor likes to scold. “Just stop eating sugar.”
Wait, we live in America. Is that even possible? Should I move to Tibet?
My doc tells patients to stick to the perimeter of their grocery store, where the meat and vegetables hang out. Everything else is loaded with preservatives, chemicals, trans-fats and metric tons of sugar. That’s all the stuff that tastes good, but plots to kill you. Forget cereal, snacks and cookies. Forget ice cream and cheese. Even dairy is out “unless you’re a baby cow,” someone will nag. (Everybody you meet these days is a freelance nutrition expert.)
My friend Angie took the Keto meat-and-veggies route to robust health. It made her a diehard carbophobic. You can eat a pound of bacon in her presence, but show her a Cocoa Puff and you’ll get a two-hour lecture on killer carbs. Once in a blue moon, Angie will take a pizza and beer break from Keto. Afterward, she’ll beg her liver’s forgiveness by drinking 12 ounces of virgin olive oil with Epsom salts. As much as I love pizza—it’s the base of my food pyramid—I’ll give it up the moment the food police make olive oil chasers mandatory.
Then there’s my daughter, who thinks Keto people are nuts. Her creed is simple: Never eat anything that has a face or a mother. As a crusading vegan, she’s on a mission to save the planet and convert everyone in her path. Naturally, her diet has no meat, fish or poultry, but you never see her eat a bona fide vegetable either. Mostly, she lives on lentils and microwaved tofu with some kind of orange coating to mimic chicken tenders. (It’s not very convincing.)
I always assumed vegans avoided synthetic ingredients with 10-syllable names, but some of them want their plant burgers to “bleed” like the animals they’re sparing. (Go figure.) The magic ingredient that makes that happen is soy leghemoglobin, which comes from genetically engineered yeast. Sounds yummy, right?
To be honest, I don’t have a close personal relationship with many vegetables either. They are the plain Janes of the plant world. Take cauliflower, for instance. It is so bland that it has to pretend to be rice, pasta, pretzels or pizza crust to get anyone to eat it. You can’t trust a vegetable living under an assumed identity.
If Julia Child were around today, the French cuisine queen would never make it past the carb counters. Eating diet food only made sense to her while waiting for a steak to cook. Julia had no future as a vegan. “If you’re afraid of butter, use cream,” was her motto.
My ideal diet is somewhere between Julia and vegan, or anything I can order by phone. Until they start delivering Brussels sprouts, I can order pizza guilt-free. And my clothes won’t need pockets.
Jan A. Igoe has given up eating almost everything except organic carrot juice and olives. If your diet is more creative or you own a pizzeria, write to her at HumorMe@SCLiving.coop.