Is it any wonder we're a nation confused when it comes to food and dieting?! Three square meals a day, they said. Whoops, change that. Six smaller meals, they tossed in. But wait! Don't forget snacks! After all, we have to make sure our tum never gets to a point where it might make BAD CHOICES. For the love of all that is good and holy, I was always told, in every conceivable diet book/mag on the market, that snacking was a BAD CHOICE. But now snacking seems to be the only thing keeping a potentially mountainous person of lard at bay. And yup, I'm confused and flummoxed. Confoxed and flummused. Snacks, as I understand them, is a different food group and it exists for a different reason than feeding our bodies. Allow me to elaborate...
Snacks. When I was a kid, a snack meant one thing: a cookie. Kindergarten snack time meant a chocolate chip cookie and an apple. Not the most healthful of snacks, the apple notwithstanding, but my mom along with many other moms didn't consider this. It's a snack, fercrissakes, a treat! More importantly, it was an enforced treat, that's why it had its own "time" just like "lunch time" and "dinner time". It was the perfect mixture of both natural and industrial sugars which would keep us just jittery and awake enough to ensure a glowing academic career. Once we learned how to spell our names.
Snack time was also a reward. A reward of food? you may gasp in horror. Hell yeah! Bravo, you didn't wet your pants when you couldn't remember the letter after "R", have a snack. Well done, you didn't bite Suzy Glockenspiel, you deserve a snack. My brave little soldier didn't throw up on the gym teacher during dodgeball, this snack's for you. People on diets are always told to reward themselves with other things: clothes or a mani-pedi. What do they really want? A snack. A proper, hardly-good-for-you snack.
Back in the Middle-class-Ages, moms would even make snacks for when you got home! Could anything be more wonderful, after a day of addition, subtraction, and *shudder* sharing, than a cupcake? A cake...IN A CUP!! Little person sized and too small for sharing! It makes me weep just to think of it. My mom's love for us was in every multicoloured sprinkle on the frosting. This stuff didn't come in boxes or squeezeable plastic tubes; she made these from scratch. The time she put into them, into these snacks, was her way of making sure we knew she was thinking about us. She was a busy lady and tired after a long day, but the cookies or cupcakes or muffins reminded us that we were in her thoughts. Always.
I'm, therefore, fond of snacks. The proper kind. Not the kind currently using the name of "snack" when in fact, it is a ploy to weasel in more of the stuff we should be eating in the first place. A carrot stick, even the little baby ones made to look like some sort of veggie-candy, is not a snack. It is a vegetable that we need as fuel. We need it's vitamins and nutrients. "Have some yogourt with nuts mixed in". Again, unsnack. We need calcium, protein, and even the nut oils as a wee bit of fat. This is stuff we need. It's not a snack. It's a sneak. A snack is, by definition, something we don't need.
It is something we WANT!!
It should be made of fabulous, outrageous, should have laws against it yumminess dwelling in every bite. Now here is the kicker about dieting and snacking - just like when we were kids, it should be a reward only and it should be the very best, and made with love. We may think we deserve a reward everyday (Hey, I didn't shed someone's blood today! I deserve a snack!). Wait until you are really proud of something. Wait until you've accomplished something - it doesn't have to be big. Just use some sense; you are trying to lose some weight after all.
Go for the highest quality chocolate, the perfectly constructed tiramisu, the sublimely soft souffle au citron. And just a bit. Now we have to share. You'll want to because you're proud of whatever it is you've done and hell, who wouldn't want to crow over it over a $14 piece of cheesecake?
And this good stuff is made by people who love what they do. They take the time to assemble all the best bits for the perfect oatmeal cookie. Hershey Kisses are made in a factory. Ditto Doritos. Historically loveless places. Bakeries, and even butcher shops with their dried sausages (a favouite snack o' mine) are peopled with people who love what they do and want you to love it too. Oblige them. Sparingly. You'll appreciate your snack even more.
So by all means, enjoy your celery and peanut butter sneak. And when you can finally zip up those jeans, have a snack. Because really...
You should love you, too.
LiliLaLarge
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