Are you going to kill me?

For most of my adult life, I’ve had a love-hate relationship with food. Love because food is awesome. Hate because, awesome or not, it sticks around a lot longer than I want it to.

Like anything else, food was much simpler when I was a kid. I ate whatever my mom fixed, and if I was lucky, I liked her choice for the day. Now, I’m the one making those decisions for my own kids, and I’m afraid I’m not doing a very good job with it.

I am influenced heavily by immediate gratification. I struggle to keep my eye on the prize when the effort to get there is counter to my immediate want, especially when it comes to food. So, to help me keep my attention focused where it belongs, on the long term gains, I’ve decided I need to learn more about food. I need to know more than simply “Cake good. Broccoli bad.”

Which part of my brain is speaking in the above scenario of cake versus broccoli? Certainly not the rational side that knows it’s actually the other way around. Nope. I’m being guided by something more primal, a craving for a flavor and self indulgence, rather than the higher thinking knowledge that cake, while often enjoyable, isn’t generally considered good for me.

Unfortunately, when staring a craving in the eye, knowing that it’s bad for me doesn’t do much to assuage the craving. It does help, however, if I take it from a different angle. Instead of asking if something is good or bad for me, I ask my food if it will kill me.

Generally speaking, if I need to ask the question, odds are the item I’m asking about will, in fact, kill me. This marks the first in a series of blogs about food nutrition. I’m going to do the research and share the info with y’all via my blog. If there’s a food you’re curious about, but haven’t had the time to do the research yourself, let me know. I’ll add it to my list.