My Very Complex Nutritional System

When you are around athletes and/or you read Runner's World or any kind of fitness magazine, you get the definite sense that food is a fuel and you should really plan out what you eat. One time I heard a coach talking about when your body absorbs this or that nutrient and I was impressed, but did not really retain the information.

Having been raised in Berkeley by parents who are natural-born cooks and gourmands of a sort, I know how to eat well. You know, not too much junk food, put some veggies on your plate (not that I do that enough), don't eat things that are too processed. But also belonging to the eat-while-standing generation I basically am a lazy grazer. And not really being an extremist at anything, I'm not inclined to go vegan, let alone vegetarian.

The closest I came to an actual food-based political statement was not going to McDonald's for an entire year after reading Fast Food Nation. Well, I also try to buy things that haven't been flown here from the other side of the world. We do live in California after all. My husband always buys things that are out of season and it annoys me.

Anyway, my theory is this, this is my theory, so how my theory goes is... my body will tell me what it wants to eat. I am hoping this is a good approach. Sometimes my body tells me to eat a jar of black olives. Don't know why. Just now I ate a head of lettuce out of the bag. Didn't wash it, probably not the most hygienic way to eat. For all I know I was teetering toward scurvy. It happens these days!

The only problem is that I am so lazy about cooking and shopping that I am limited in how I can follow this urge, so I often scrounge on the same things, day in and out.

My husband cooks most of the time. He's got a limited repertoire, but lots of sazon. So we eat beans every day. And he likes meat. He's the kind of guy who eats two or three kinds of meat in a single meal. He really admires the Chinese for their meat cookery.

I do like to bake, and I love sugar. The other day I was thinking I should figure out how to make energy bars to economize. Probably just adding some protein powder or almond butter to an oatmeal bar recipe would do the trick.

Things could be worse: I could be a Masai tribeswoman who only ate cattle-based products.