Trying (and failing) to Eat Healthier Food

Here at Wheaton, I find myself eating mostly pasta and sandwiches for most meals. I am fairly ok with this, because I love pasta, but I often find myself craving fresh fruit or a well-prepared salad. When this happens, I drag my roommate to Whole Foods for some healthier snacks. A few weeks ago, we made the trip and filled our carts with raspberries, pineapple, yogurt, granola, and a few apples. I was so excited about the prospect of fresh fruit that I joyfully marched up to the checkout line and set down my items. Turns out the price of buying healthy that day was going to be $50; a ridiculous amount of money for only about six items. Healthy eating is expensive! I never fully realized this until I got to Wheaton. If I wanted to have my mini fridge constantly stocked with fresh yogurt and fruit, I would have been broke a while ago. Instead, buying quick, cheap meals like Easymac and Ramen becomes the answer. However, every once in a while I will still splurge on fruit and salad, and the result is always worth it.

This realization about healthy eating reminded me of a film we watched in class about food co-ops. Some of the locals were upset about the prospect of a newer, more expensive place to buy food. They felt that their habits were being challenged, and were very resistant to buying food that they were not accustomed to, just because it was healthier. It is very hard to keep up an extremely nutritious diet while at school and while living on a college student’s paycheck (or lack of paycheck). However, Wheaton has impressed me with its fruit and salad options so I have not yet given up hope of a healthy diet!

When Emerson Closes and Panic Ensues

The last two days before Thanksgiving break are always the hardest. Students are tuned out, professors are tired, and everyone is impatiently awaiting those well deserved few days off before winter break. By Tuesday afternoon, campus is almost empty. I was one of the few students who were still at Wheaton on Tuesday night, because I had a flight leaving on Wednesday. This meant I had a room (and almost an entire hall) to myself, and a night to relax before the short vacation. Sounds great, right? False. Emerson ended up closing around four o’clock, leaving me to fend for myself for dinner. I was completely unprepared, having no car on campus and an un-stocked fridge. Usually the last two weeks before winter break leave me with little to no money in my wallet, just waiting until I can get home and work, earning some extra cash for second semester. I ended up scrounging on some leftover snacks found in my room, and ended up eating an absurd amount of granola for dinner.

Luckily, two nights later I was eating a wonderful Thanksgiving meal with my family. By the time I returned on Sunday, I had forgotten all about my hasty and meager Tuesday night dinner. However, I will be sure to keep some extra meal options in my room from now on for future times like these.

Not Peanut Butter

Growing up with an older brother that was highly allergic to peanut butter was always tough. At an early age my brother found out the hard way that he was allergic to peanuts. He was given a peanut butter sandwich for lunch in his preschool class and started getting hives all over his body. He went into anaphylactic shock shortly after. He did survive but found out that he was severely allergic. In response my parents stopped keeping peanut products in the house for my brother’s safety. I wasn’t allowed to have any in case I was in the same boat as him. As a result, I have never tasted Reese’s pieces, or Five Guys, most granola bars, and certainly not peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Still to this day I have not had a peanut or anything containing it. Instead, I have substituted. Sunflower-seed and Soy-nut butter, among other foods, are a way for peanut-allergic people to get the same benefits as peanut butter. A couple years ago when I tried it, I wasn’t too fond of the taste or the smell, but now I swear by Sunflower Seed butter. Sunflower Seed butter is a rich paste made of seeds and oil that shadows peanut butter. Anything you can do with peanut butter can be accomplished with sun-butter; sun-butter and jelly, sun-butter and banana on toast, and it can even be mixed into a smoothie for added protein. One of my roommates who can have peanut butter but stopped because of my allergy started eating sun-butter (sunflower seed) and hasn’t turned back since. It is a pretty good alternative and a healthy one at that. We usually snag a bag of bagels from one of the dining halls and keep it in the room. When I am studying in the room and want to eat some chips I can instead spread some sun-butter on a bagel and satisfy my hunger. If you are interested in trying soy-nut or sun-butter, there are also other alternatives such as almond-butter, cashew butter, and even cookie butter (doesn’t provide the same health benefits).

Do I look like I like avocado?

By now we all know that food exists as a social fact. Food is never just calories and vitamins, but rather has all sorts of cultural connections. While abroad friends often asked me what we ate in America. Pasta, pizza and meat are our American staples. I find, however, that I rarely, if ever, eat these food items, or at least the last two, as a vegetarian with vegan tendencies (I renounced my veganism when I went abroad and would've shriveled if I hadn't, insulting everyone in the process by refusing their food). I have also found that the food choices I have made have influenced the way people perceive me. Although, as we learned, the slow food movement started in Italy, it has really caught on in America where there now seems to be a whole culture based on food that I inadvertently found myself being identified with. My sophomore year Wheaton had an "I am ___" event where students were asked to sum their identity in a couple words. I wondered what word I would use when my roommate offered "Vegan." And like the Victorian women, my eating choices became my identity (Brumberg). That same year my communications with a contemporary were terminated because I was too "crunchy." According to urban dictionary this word is used to describe "persons who have adjusted or altered their lifestyle for environmental reasons. Crunchy is derived from "crunchy granola," apparently a food associated with persons [who] tend to be politically strongly left-leaning and may be additionally but not exclusively categorized as vegetarians, vegans, eco-tarians, conservationists, environmentalists, neo-hippies, tree huggers, nature enthusiasts, etc." (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=crunchy). Clearly this culture is more than just food but it is interesting that a food is used to encapsulate it. Perhaps this is because vegetarianism itself is a way of exerting power as consumers to show disagreement with the meat industry and its environmental as well as human rights offenses, a true example of "Appetite as Voice" (Brumberg). Years later, I was no longer being labeled as crunchy, but I started to notice a new food was starting to be used to describe my "identity." Many of my friends were surprised to hear that I don't like avocado. I kept hearing "You look like you like avocado." I had no idea what that was supposed to me, how could I look like I like a fruit? So I went to my roommate. She smirked and said "hipster." Again we see a food item being used as a symbol for a culture/lifestyle. And by being assigned these foods to define the person I am, I have felt so judged.