McDonald’s would like you to think that temptation is just a simple joy. I have been so bothered recently by their latest ad campaign for their chicken nuggets. A ridiculously good marching band drops from formation, one by one, tempted by bags and bags of McDonald’s chicken nuggets. We are in an economic recession, and we’re retreating to simple, to basic, to the uncluttered. We are retreating to joy as a source of pleasure, rather than the pleasure money used to buy for us. McDonald’s knows this, and they want you to believe that the temptation you feel at the sight or smell of a box of chicken nuggets is a simple joy. Not, of course, that the food itself is a simple joy, because even the advertising executives at McDonald’s know that is so far from reality they couldn’t sell it in a ad, but rather the temptation of the aroma of day old grease and manufactured, frozen pieces of batter-slathered chicken chunks. Temptation is the name of the game when it comes to America’s relationship with food. We are a country of excess, where we can eat almost anything we want, anytime, and yet we still need to be tempted?
Watching this commercial, I cannot help but think of the first days and weeks spent on my journey to improve my health. Like any other great journey, I learned as I went. Lewis and Clark had no idea how many supplies they’d need to head into an uncharted wilderness of unknown expanses. They didn’t know how far they’d go, how long they’d be gone or what they would face. The first few weeks, I imagine, were spent learning how to live, to function and simply exist on their journey. They stumbled and faced uncertainty. They reached for help in order to help themselves. Those first few steps are precarious and can transform the feet, yards or miles that lay ahead of you. Temptation dwells in my shadow, just where the hue turns to black and I can feel its presence close to me. It has always been and will always be there. I spent those first few weeks learning that I cannot face what I cannot see. I could not outwit what I did not understand.
I had lost seven pounds during the course of Lent in 2009. That Easter Sunday was transfiguring for me. While I certainly enjoyed the cakes and pastries of my family’s traditional celebration, I saw them in a new light. I was exalted for the first time, out of a place where I felt powerless over my health and my body, and raised to a place where I could see myself more objectively. Those weeks of keeping my Lenten promise had proven to me that I not only had control over my body, but they proved to me that I wasn’t treating it well. It was made absolutely clear to me that the simple joy I found in decadent sweets was disconnected from my body’s actual physical experience of nourishment from them. My body did not enjoy them, my brain did. Just like the gender roles I’d spent so many hours reading about and studying in college, my affection for dessert was nothing more than social, cultural construction, as was my guilt over eating it.
I had spent those first few weeks beginning to tear down the siding, breaking out the windows and removing the shingles of the building that represented my desire for and the satisfaction I derived from certain foods. I realized that perhaps all of my life I’d been told that dessert is at once a temptation, a source of privilege, and therefore something I should desire. The place held by dessert in our culture is more than evident in the language that surrounds it. Marie Antoinette told angry, impoverished, starving French peasants to eat cake when there was no bread. Dessert is saved for last, because we are led to believe it is the best part of the meal; that is has more value than the other portions of the meal which serve only a nutritional purpose. Stressed is desserts spelled backward, don’t you know? Dessert after every meal is still seen as a measure of wealth, and the lack of it a shameful mark of poverty. I was never eating cake because I needed the sugar for a boost of energy. I was never eating pie because I thought I could use another serving a fruit that day. I never ate one or two cookies for a quick snack when my stomach was rumbling. I was eating dessert because my gluttonous American mind believed it to be measurable, as though it added to my substance, my personal value, and paid away some of my anxiety.
I was slowly beginning to learn how what I put into my body correlated with the way my body and mind felt. While my body bears and displays the physical changes I’ve made over the past two years, my mind bore the brunt of the revolution. The construction of guilt is another piece to this puzzle. Our common relationship with food is so far off of what is natural and normal for human beings that we crave what we do not need, then wrecked with guilt for eating it. Guilt, like temptation exists with both good and bad consequences. It has taken me the entirety of my journey to build a healthy relationship with guilt. For those first few weeks, developing this relationship was my constant battle. Walking for fifteen minutes inside my house everyday was a great challenge and I had to develop such a fine tuned sense of guilt that I wouldn’t—no, couldn’t not do it. I had to teeter past the opposite edge of a healthy relationship with guilt, and I had to have the self-control to manage it without falling off the cliff. While most of my friends and family would assure me that it was okay for me to skip a day of walking, or it was okay for me to eat a big piece of pie, I absolutely had to believe that it wasn’t okay…and then I had to keep myself from developing a mental disorder. It is a game to learn, a fine line to walk, and it is far from easy. It is more than just a lesson learned in honing self-discipline. It is actually doing just that—mastering self control.
As the spring of 2009 carried on, as days got warmer and short hikes and walks outside became more accessible, my partner and I would venture outdoors for exercise. I lost another eight pounds by learning my way through temptation and guilt, through self-control and over-indulgence, by eating the foods I’d always eaten, but in moderation instead of excess. We were planning on moving home, settling, working and making a life for ourselves. In May of that year, everything seemed to be soaring. I was drifting on cloud nine, and my spirit was going nowhere but up. What I didn’t see then was the imminence of summer’s thunder, of heat and lightening, of a slowly developing hurricane that would change my life.
The following is a recipe from that time in my life, to give you an idea of the beginning of the changes I’ve made to my diet. While I probably wouldn’t make it this way anymore, I would modify this recipe again to fit my lifestyle now, and I may just do that. This salad was inspired by the grilled chicken salad from Sonic. There was something so delicious at the time about a heavy onion ring atop a bed of greens and grilled chicken coated with melting cheddar cheese. This was my “healthy” re-invention, circa Spring of 2009. While this is probably not the healthiest recipe I’ve ever created, it was what was working for me at the time. Slow and steady wins the race, and this is a vast improvement from the salad from Sonic itself, for my body, my wallet and the local economy. Enjoy.
Revamping our favorite Sonic Salad
Serves 4
2 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 TBS. good honey mustard
1 TBS. apple cider vinegar
½ TBS. olive oil
Dash of garlic salt
Dash of black pepper
One medium sized head of romaine lettuce, chopped
A hefty handful of mixed mesculin greens
Eight strips of turkey bacon, microwave cooked until crispy
2 hard boiled eggs, peeled and sliced
Two avocados, chunked
One package of grape tomatoes
Two large carrots, shredded
One red bell pepper, finely diced
½ cup of raw almonds
4 oz. shredded, local Cheddar cheese
One recipe of Ellie Krieger’s Oven Baked Onion Rings
Newman’s Own LIGHT Honey Mustard Dressing
1. Start by getting the chicken ready. Heat a large skillet coated with cooking spray over medium-high heat. In a small bowl, whisk together the honey mustard, cider vinegar, olive oil, garlic salt and black pepper. Cut the two chicken breasts in half length wise, leaving you with four thin pieces of chicken. Brush them with the honey mustard mixture and cook thoroughly in the heated skillet, turning once, about 5 minutes on each side. Remove to a cutting board to rest and cool slightly, then cut into strips for the salad.
2. In a large bowl, or on a large serving plate, pile the lettuces, bacon, eggs, avocado pieces, grape tomatoes, carrots, pepper, and almonds. Top with the slightly warm chicken, then top the chicken pieces with the shredded cheddar. Then top with the oven-baked onion rings. Serve and dress individually with the dressing.
April of 2009, seven pounds lighter and already happier.
No comments:
Post a Comment