Clean Your Plate

I’m not sure if it is this way in other families, but in mine, love is very closely related to food. When Nana or Mom or anybody else feels the need to express their feelings for you, they bake you a cake or a pie or something related to the “dessert family” of foods. After celebrating the Grandparent’s 50th, I started thinking about food. More specifically, how we use food in our lives. What I realized is that humans, especially Americans in this day and age, treat food like a reward more often then not. For reader friendliness and to maintain a general atmosphere of blogging happiness, I will refrain from highly opinionated statements. But only this once.

When I was a wee little booger, more often then not, a home-cooked, balanced, healthy meal would be placed in front of me. Meat? Check. Veggies? Check. Some form of bread? Check. (Ok Matt, we get it. Food. Get on with it. I’ve got to be at the gym for racquetball in half an hour. LET’S GOOOO.) Sorry. Long story short, the green beans or broccoli would always end up being the last on the plate. This would always illicit the same conversation:

Mom: “Finish your veggies.”

Me: “Eh…not really feeling the veggies tonight, Madre.” (I had a pretty advanced sense of casual diction back in the day.)

Mom: “Yes you are. Finish them, and you can have dessert.”

Me: “Make it a dessert and a half, and we have a deal.”

Dad: “Uhhh. One dessert or a whoopin’.”

Me: “One dessert sounds pretty good.”

Didn’t this happen to everyone? You were offered a dessert or treat of some sort in return for eating a balanced meal. Isn’t this an odd way to train a future healthy eater? And sometimes, this treat wasn’t even a reward for eating well. Sometimes it was a reward for doing well in school or completing your chores or not gnawing on the corners of the furniture (sometimes I wouldn’t get walked daily… and I get bored easily).

I realize, that even now at nearly 21 years old, I  STILL reward myself with food. For a brain drain after a hard test, I will go scarf down a Wendy’s hamburger. For a successful study session, I will grab a gourmet coffee. For not dismembering a roommate, a candy bar.

Sigh. Well, there are two things I can do: I can retrain myself to use other things as a reward, or I can pick healthier foods to reward myself with. (But after I make one of those changes, I get a milkshake for doing so well….right?)

I’m going to go and think about this decision over a bowl of Cocoa Puffs….I deserve one after writing such an AWESOME blog.