Allison F. from Houston, Texas
Question:
You live in Portland, Oregon, land of organic vegetables and locally produced foods. Are you pretty healthy?
Answer
On one day this week I ate only bacon and pudding. That’s it. For the entire day. The next day was mostly hot dogs, and a poptart, I think. It was a strawberry poptart, so I got my serving of fruit there.
My answer to the am I healthy question would have to come down soundly as a no.
But it’s bacon! Bacon is wonderful. Whole wars have been fought over bacon, that’s what the Crusades were about.
Muslims: Bacon is bad!
Christians: We love bacon!
And 200 years of war ensued. Admittedly, the Christians were taking the bacon a little too seriously. You have to draw the line somewhere people.
Reader: I don’t remember reading about that in history class.
Addy: Perhaps you should check again. Bacon has even influenced art and the development of the scientific method. More recently, it has been solely responsible for the success of actor Kevin Bacon.
The veggie eaters are out to get me
I don’t always eat this badly. My roommates cook house meals full of vegetables, so I get a little kale and onions wedged in my diet. And my friend Nate somehow adds spinach to the meals we eat together without me noticing. In short, people are sneaking healthy things into my diet.
When I buy meat, I try to make sure that the animal was treated well (no hormones, free range) up until that whole killing it part. I’m trying to cut back. I may not have picked up healthy habits in Portland, but I have gained some of the guilt. Although sometimes, and I hate to say it, guilt does make things delicious.
Cue the music: “If loving you is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.”
Backpacking hasn’t helped. I eat such bad for you food on the trail, that the habits are hard to break when I get back into town. When I got off the trail in small towns with tiny grocery stores, I had a good excuse for not eating fresh and wholesome foods. They weren’t available. But now I live 3 blocks away from an organic produce market and Trader Joe’s, and I have no excuse.
If you have read this far, and for your sake I hope that you have moved on, thank you for listening to my little confession. I just ate three bites of salad as penance. Bacon later.
