As Syrio Forel once said, "fear cuts deeper than swords." If you get that reference you are such a nerd. Like me. Congratulations. Unfortunately, a sword can slice your head or arm off, and that's pretty scary as well. I'm not sure when the world decided to make people scared of EVERYTHING but I'm pretty over the nightly news. I'm sure if "the one thing I must know before getting in my car again" was that important, it would be breaking news and not a teaser for the news that comes on in 3 hours.
 |
| The BlackBerry thumb will kill you, followed by iPhone brain. News at 11. |
Here's the thing about living with certain fears... the end result of life, is death. Everyone will eventually die, unless you plan to live in hologram form and go on a concert tour following your personal end. (Good for you weirdo.)
 |
| MJ's hologram reads this blog. |
I have recently come to a sad conclusion while delving into health information and worrying about what L is eating... When it comes to local news and the internet everything "causes" cancer. By "causes" we mean, contains an ingredient, mutation, or hormone that has been shown to be a carcinogen. Lunchmeat causes cancer, soda causes cancer, heated hard plastic causes cancer, water bottles cause cancer, sugar causes cancer, the sun causes cancer, and also breathing, something none of us can seemingly avoid, causes cancer in various ways. These statements are all huge reaches, but for some reason, news media in various forms is trying to scare the crap out of us. Also, this propaganda is causing young people to be fatalistic about cancer. None of that is good.
By the way, this doesn't end by me saying "eat and drink whatever you want, smoke 20 packs a day, and renew your tanning bed membership because you are going to die anyway!" It's just a point where I had a realization that released me from a lot of fear. Instead of trying to do everything in a way to be the best and most healthy, and really stressing myself out, time would be better spent making intelligent choices about what I'm putting into my body, while enjoying life enough so that if the world ended tomorrow I would be satisfied that I had lived and tasted and wined and loved and gotten high on sugar, and sunburns, and wine. This is where I realized that you just try your best, you know your limits, but you still push them when you need to, and enjoy your life. Cancer is awful, death is sometimes a scary thing to think about. Most things we don't know much about are. In the instance of the opening quote, cancer/sickness/death could be the sword. Living your life in fear of death or sickness is basically giving in to that fear of sickness and not living at all. Done preaching, now on to more light hearted fears... like the fear of kitchens and raw meat.
 |
| When appliances attack. |
I get it. Of all the comfy rooms in your house, the kitchen is by far the scariest. It has knives, ovens, stoves, fire, sharp edges, and the air of possible cooking failure hanging in the air like early morning fog. None of that stuff ever scared me. I usually fail at cooking things daily, if not a few times a week. Overcooking eggs, undercoating pans, and most of this is because I often cook without a recipe. It's how I learn best.
 |
| I'm a raw chicken breast, and I'm here to kill you. |
When I first started to cook, the things that scared me most were raw foods. The instillation of this fear can be directly attributed to media and pr, as it was not put in me by my mother. The people hacking their antibacterial products like to play commercials with pictures of germs writhing around on your counter tops. I'm not saying you should pick up raw chicken and lick it, I'm just saying Julia Child NEVER washed her hands in the kitchen. She was a cross contaminating machine. If you don't believe me, go watch any of her cooking shows. When this fact came to light, it helped me realize that any time I touched raw chicken, I probably wasn't going to die. (Whew!) Now the only reason my kitchen is evil is because the stove is electric and from the early 90s.
 |
| Queen Julia tells salmonella to eff off. |
ATTENTION: Full circle moment. Just as you should not let fear rule your life, don't let fear of failure keep you out of the kitchen. Cooking at home is the BEST way to know what you are eating. It is proven time and time again that if you want to weigh less you need to cook MORE and eat out less. Cooking at home isn't the scary sitcom fodder that it used to be. Get a subscription to a great recipe magazine like Cooking Light and follow along. Or use the internet for free recipes and cooking techniques. Spend your time in the grocery store in the produce section, at the butcher, and in dairy for your milks, yogurt & cheese. And your eggs, even though they aren't dairy. That's just where they live. Then GET OUT while you still can... Grocery stores are evil.
 |
| The candy section.... MWAHAHAHAHA. |
If you want to eat out intelligently and maybe don't have a cook at home option, arm yourself with information and knowledge. If I had only KNOWN that my precious drumsticks had 300 calories a pop, I wouldn't have an extra 3 lbs hanging around that I now have to work and deny wine to get rid of. Knowledge is power. Pick up one of the Eat This not That books. That will fill you in with a lot of information to make healthy decisions when you eat out.
 |
| What's the Ramona Pinot calorie count? 666 per glass. |
I came up with some wise words all on my own to sum this up: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself, y'all. And holograms of dead people.
 |
Let it be,
- RT
No comments:
Post a Comment