Tag: Not-worth-it foods

Halloween's disappointing holiday candy bags with wrappers
Open Candy Season

Open Candy Season

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It’s here! Halloween through Easter is open candy season, which means that there are bags of candy around, and if you open them they may get eaten. Maybe a bag will be obliterated during a commercial break or while you think you are asleep at night. Even if you don’t want any it will find you. At home, at work, at your Aunt Mildred’s house. If you have kids it will be at school parties, at trick-or-treating, and in their stockings.

When I was little I remember seasonal treats, like candy corn at Halloween, candy canes at Christmas, and Valentine’s conversation hearts traded at school.  But now I’m noticing the same cheap candy at the store every holiday, just repackaged with different colors on the bag. Aisles of it. Ginormous bags the size of dog food sacks. Everything is so redundant and unremarkable; it’s just not special anymore. There is only one season and it tastes blah. But yet I keep partaking.

Typical store offerings encourage quantity, not quality. The food is sweet, cheap and accessible, but doesn’t really add much joy to the celebration or gatherings.  I doubt I am creating lasting memories of the holidays for my kids with these small “chocolate” bars sitting around the house, or plastic eggs brimming with fruity gummies in their Easter baskets.  What they really ask for are holiday activities, and if they want food it is always something we make together or eat around the table with family. No one ever puts “cheap-ass candy”* on their wish list to Santa.

I told my son that if he really cared about a girl he shouldn’t buy her Russell Stover anything, ever. He was hesitant when he showed me what his girlfriend that year got him for Valentine’s Day. Yup, a Russell Stover heart. It sat in our pantry with its lineup of lonely pink and orangey crème middles, only a few bites nibbled off. They broke up not long after. The heart box and its contents eventually got thrown away–it just wasn’t meant to be.

True love deserves better candy.

bags of candy and wrappers

And maybe I should remove these disappointing holiday candy bags from my nightstand. The Hubs put them there with the intention of hiding them from the kids until Halloween for the trick or treaters.  Then he had the balls to open one of the bags. It was all over after that.

(For us not eating the candy, not for my marriage, although he did buy some cheap-ass candy*. BUT, if he shows up with those lame Palmer peanut butter pumpkins after these are gone, I might be gone. Thankfully, he knows me better than that!)

*Cheap-ass candy should not be confused with cheap ass-candy, which may actually be on some Christmas wish lists, not that I would know or anything.

Bonus! Emoji Charades, candy style!

Guess the candy name

  1. 🍒💣
  2. 🌌
  3. 😆
  4. 👆🏽
  5. 🤷🏽‍♀️📞
  6. 👴🏼🎸 or 🍾💎💎💎
  7. 💼🐱
  8. 💪🏾
  9. 👩🏽👩🏼💋
  10. 🍔🍔
  11. ☄️
  12. 🤓🤓🤓
  13. 🤣👨‍🌾
  14. 💵📆
  15. 🍬🌽
  16. 🍼🎓🎓
  17. 🔴🌿
  18. 🔴🔥
  19. 🗣🛑

  20. 💨👤

Answers

  1. Cherry Bomb
  2. Milky Way
  3. Snickers
  4. U-no
  5. Whatchamacallit
  6. Pop Rocks
  7. KitKat
  8. Big Hunk
  9. Hershey Kiss
  10. Whoppers
  11. (Atomic) Fire Ball
  12. Nerds OR Smarties
  13. Jolly Rancher
  14. PayDay
  15. Candy Corn
  16. Bottle Caps
  17. Red Vines
  18. Red Hots
  19. Gobstoppers
  20. Air Heads
Worth-It and Not-Worth-It Food Stories

Worth-It and Not-Worth-It Food Stories

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I have been intermittently tracking Worth-It and Not-Worth-It Foods—trying to pay more attention to what I eat, recognizing food experiences that are worth it in terms of calories, taste, and enjoyability.  On the flip side, I am trying to stop myself from making eating decisions that are not worth it to me and make me feel bad in the short and long term.  Here are some of the things I have eaten:

Not worth it

  • Horrible (work meeting fare) grocery store doughnut with chemical aftertaste
  • Reheated old stale Belgian waffle found in back of my fridge on a busy morning
  • Sonic drive in chicken sandwich with soggy bun and limp lettuce, eaten in the car before grocery shopping
  • Carl’s Jr. “salad” with $5.49 of iceberg lettuce—what a rip off
  • Hard salt water taffy (couldn’t tell you what flavor) at my desk from the community candy bowl
  • Boring pizza, even ate the crust nubs, in my underwear while sitting on the family room rug

Worth it

  • Half of a buttery croissant with raspberry jam on a sunny lunch out with friends
  • Fresh berries and spinach from my garden, from ground to mouth
  • Corn on the cob at dinner with my kids
  • The Hubs’ homemade clam chowder with bacon, made with fear that we wouldn’t like it (and also with love!)
  • Smoked pork butt, on a lazy group camping weekend, along with delicious potluck samplings
  • Vanilla ice cream with coconut cookie crumbs in the quiet dark of my kitchen, kids tucked in and asleep
  • A tall glass of iced tea with lemon—the same drink my mom always likes
  • Chicken enchiladas verdes at my kitchen table, in a late but hearty home-cooked meal

Most of my not-worth-it experiences happened when I felt rushed and unprepared. Or when I felt desperate to not taste the inside of my mouth after hours of work dehydration. When I make food an afterthought I also make myself insignificant, worrying more about completing tasks or shoving more plans into my day. The more panicked and overworked I am the more I feel like junk and eat like junk.

Worth-it foods happen when I am relaxing with my family and friends, or savoring a snack in a peaceful moment alone with the sun of my backyard.  If I am in a good place the experience tends to come out positive. The contented feelings already in progress contribute to what I decide to eat and how I enjoy the food.

This exercise has made me reevaluate how I judge my intake.  Foods never stand alone, but instead are part of a story.  So much of popular good/bad food rhetoric is shaped by nutritional science and hard to follow rules.  But when it comes down to it we are shaping our own sagas, with food as a supporting cast.  What we eat is a byproduct of how we live.  I am in charge of my own story, so I should worry less about what I eat and instead think more about creating a happy and satisfying life in general—good choices should follow.

 

Peer Into the Kaleidoscope