The Things I Learned

My cousin Jeff is disappointed that I've stopped eating healthy. I thought I would share a few thoughts on the issue. First, I was kidding about getting rid of the healthy stuff in my apartment. I'm not at a place in life where I can afford to throw away perfectly good food. Even if I was, my conscience wouldn't let me, not because children are starving in Africa (that argument never made sense to me), but because I was raised by my father, who taught me the value of the dollar. I learned a few things from my change in eating habits.
1. You can eat healthy without eating only rabbit food.
2. Some rabbit food actually tastes good.
3. The difference between most fat free foods and their not-so-fat-free counterparts is negligible as far as taste buds are concerned.
4. No sugar added foods still taste sweet.
5. Kool-Aid isn't really missed after a week or so.
6. It's all about portions, you can still eat just about anything you want to, just maybe not as much as you were once used to.
7. Whole grains aren't so bad (I've always been a fan of white)

It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. The key for me was being able to eat WHAT I wanted. So once I figured out I could still have ice cream (just not half the box), it wasn't so bad. The real problem is that the time to start this is not when you are pregnant. Because by the time you cut out a lot of sugar and fat, it's really hard to get all the calories you need to grow a baby. Not that the baby will stop growing, but my doctor explained that I won't have any energy left over to do anything else. Which means I would also be more cranky and irritable than I already am. Now that I know it's not so terrible, I'm thinking it's a great post-pregnant thing to do. I'd like to not only lose the baby weight, but an extra 15 lbs. on top of that. (It's alright, you can laugh).

Now after all that talk about healthy foods, it's time for the story about ice cream. Yesterday my sweet husband called on his lunch break to ask if he could take me out for ice cream that evening. Apparently all of his coworkers could hear my reply of, "Ice-cream?!?!" Of course I said yes. So we went with Jon and Suzy, some of our new friends here, to G's Dairy Delights, a new ice cream place in town. They also sell cheese and milk and other dairy products. I thought they would make their own ice cream and was excited to see the list of flavors. Well I discovered not all ice cream places are created equal. They got their ice-cream from Reed's Dairy, which is good ice cream, but they sell it at the grocery store. They did have a few special flavors, but they were all chocolate. And some of the ice cream was Blue Bunny, and they scooped it straight out of the half gallon box you buy at the grocery store, only they charge you 2.50 a scoop. So I was annoyed that this ice cream place was just an expensive grocery store. I figured why get two scoops of ice cream there when we could get an entire box of really good ice cream at the store for the same price? Ben was annoyed that I wouldn't just pick a flavor. I think the girl behind the counter was too. We compromised and bought a half gallon of Strawberry Cheesecake ice-cream. Don't worry, over half of it is still left.