The Things We Eat

The list of personal faults, addictions, and awkward private items that I share is growing. Today I will share some thoughts on another of my secret thrills: I am occasionally obsessed with diets, nutrition, recipes, and in general, all things food.

Yes, I love diets and nutrition. Which may seem weird coming from someone who has never really needed to diet. I am a sucker for the latest diet fads and nutrition books. Poor Wayne. As his primary source of dinner, I may have, on occasion, fed him interesting concoctions and put him on different diets. No carbs. No Fat. No Diet Coke. (yes it has happened)

Wayne and I have had our differences in the area of dieting. Once he came home and was not eating dinner. "I'm just going to skip it and do good on my diet," He says. I wasn't too thrilled when I found a receipt for corn dogs & candy bars in his pockets.

The diet of the day is now 'eat right for your body type' or something to that affect. Basically, out of four types of bodies, you figure out what your type is. Then you eat accordingly. Wayne is apparently an 'adrenal' type. So if he snoops in the pantry for something that is not on his list of foods to eat, I tell him, "Don't stimulate your adrenals!"

What I want to write about today is not food that is good for you. I never knew what it was to 'crave' things throughout my pregnancy. I didn't crave anything. However, my post-partum body has cravings. Mostly for food in general, but especially sweets. I am avoiding the dentist.

Since we have been eating right for our adrenals, I have been noticing what foods are generally eaten most. The usual culprits, of course: Salt, sugar and grease. But the somewhat eye-opening conclusion I have come to, is that our normal at-home cooking generally contains a TON of.....creamy stuff. Yep, creamy stuff. Forget about hormones, gluten and carbs....we eat lots of creamy stuff.

When I started looking for recipes that didn't overstimulate Wayne's adrenals, I had to discard any that had creamy stuff in it. I realized that everything had creamy stuff in it: Cream, mayo, cream of mushroom soup, sour cream, cream cheese, high-fat cheese, butter...the list goes on.

I must insert a disclaimer here. I don't care what you eat. I do not eat 5 servings of veggies and sweets only 'occasionally'. I eat just as much white bread and fried food as the rest of you.

I have come across a few recipes worth mentioning. The first: Gooey Butter Cake. It is gooey. And buttery. And I have eaten it; it is delicious.

Now, on to the ingredients:
1/2 pound butter
1/2 pound cream cheese
3 eggs
1 yellow cake mix

Since this isn't going to be quite good enough on its own, we add one last ingredient: A pound of powdered sugar. Yes, the whole bag. I added up the calories for this recipe: 5715. I then wished I hadn't. The recipe that I had claimed this recipe made 6-8 servings. At six servings, a piece of this ooey gooey-ness would be nearly 1000 calories. Thankfully, the recipe is for a 9 by 13 pan, and I have yet to witness someone cutting a 9 by 13 dessert into only 6 pieces. But still, that means 1/12th of the recipe would be nearly 500 (mostly fat) calories. Wow.

Let's move on to something a bit more healthy: Salad, right? A while back I made Strawberry Pretzel Salad to bring to a potluck. I placed it by the salads, and Wayne told me that it was in the wrong place: It needed to go with the desserts. I told him it was a salad, but he refused to believe it. So I asked my friend Poppy what the dish was. "Oh, it's that pretzel salad right?" She said.

But it made me think about the ingredients of this so-called salad. Pretzels, butter, sugar, cream cheese, cool whip, jello. Oh yes, and a few strawberries! Is this a dessert that we just call a salad to feel better about our eating habits?

How many salads are not better sprinkled with bacon and cheese? Or a savory salad smothered in real mayonnaise.

Moving on to main dishes, we can't seem to just eat meats and vegetables. We love adding cheeses and more creamy stuff. One chicken casserole dish I found contains 12 slices of cheese, two cans of cream of mushroom soup, 4 cups of stuffing crumbs, and a full cup of butter, among other things.

Once you start thinking about what you put into the food you are cooking, you realize how excessive some dishes are. If you made these three dishes for a meal, you would use nearly three cups, or a pound and a half, of butter. For one meal! It is amazing that many of us have not had heart attacks yet.

This food talk is making me hungry. I think there are some brownies calling my name from the kitchen...