Picky Eater 2.0

Once upon a time a long time ago in this dimension and timeline I was a picky eater.
Oh yes the pickiest.
I couldn't eat any food not our own unless I'd picked through it, combing it over for onions and other icky vegetables that I was sure adults put into food, ON PURPOSE, so the kids wouldn't eat it and they could have more......
I could proudly count the number of vegetables I could eat with out gagging on one hand.
My favorite meal was spaghetti with *shudders now* processed cheese. I'm not denying the flavor of processed cheese by the way....it's just the process part that creeps me out.
And fast food was near ambrosia to me. Hamburgers, anything fried...oh how delicious it was.
When I was a kid, candies in all shapes and sizes and a lovely rainbow of colors, were a gastronomic delight.
Now I'm picky in a whole new way.
I have become addicted to delicious, fresh natural foods. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a health nut, I'm a taste buds service provider. I keep my tongue happy, and it doesn't slap me in the face while I'm a sleep.
And it is seeming that the more fresh flavors and ingredients (that just happen to be healthier for me) I eat, the more I want. The more my palette is exposed to fresh herbs, lots of spices and the amazing variety of fruits and vegetables available to me.....the more I want them.......crave them! Variety IS the spice of life. Fast Food can be flat and flavorless and all starts tasting the same after cooking so many delicious and surprisingly nutritious meals for us. And say it's not so nutritious.....some days a gal wants a cheese loaded pizza....... any one who has made their own pizza from scratch can attest to the fact it kicks the ass 100% of the time of any take-out or frozen pizza anywhere.
Here's a true story. We have stopped and bought salad fixings on the way home from the airport after a trip one time at 2:30 in the morning instead of getting fast food. That's how much our taste buds had adapted to fresh crispy greens, with balsamic vinegar dressing, olives, cottage cheese and oodles of fresh herbs.
Fast Food, pre-prepared foods, overly preserved foods, chemical laden foods and over processed foods....
Now I have become eerily squeamish over the ingredients in a lot of these things...most of which I can't pronounce let alone recognize as food. And dye...ick, ack, gack, icky gack on an ack sided stick!!!!! Dyed food is THE creepiest. If it's a natural thing like cumin, carrot or beets I don't mind....but neon green and bright blue and vibrant red fakey candies just freak me out. I can't believe I ever thought they were cool. Did you even know that grapes do not taste like grapes. Growing up I had one idea in my head of what grapes tasted like from all the *grape flavored* sodas and candies. But turns out that flavor does not exist in the natural world! And isn't it weird that some one would invent the flavor *grape* when it already exists???? Yes, I've seen them, had them, they're those little round thingys at the grocery store...buy them in clumps. Very tasty. And wanna know the ingredients in them....it's.....drum roll please....GRAPES!
Who knew I'd grow fussy this way with my oldering age?
I pick groceries based on their ingredients more often then what my taste buds want....and it's becoming so that my taste buds want what my brain wants...which is REAL food. I am not out to condemn and talk bad about the processed and
pre-packaged food companies.....I think....it's just that food seems more delicious when I can understand all the ingredients listed on the package........ I'm not a nut about it or a fanatic. It's just more often then not we eat food prepared entirely by me rather then some big faceless company. Cause I now have an interest in what oil my food is cooked with (coconut in case you're curious) whether or not there's any weird dyes in it (My food coloring is in my craft supplies box where they belong and NOT my kitchen) and if it's loaded with preservatives......I don't know if preservatives are bad or anything I just know I certainly do not need my food to last for 5 or 6 years.
A day or two, a week at the most is all I'm asking for.
We eat a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables. And despite my love affair with ice cream not nearly as much of that as I may have led people to believe.
We have started making our own yogurt because we like that it has more friendly bacteria then store bought....holy smokin hannah I never in my wildest dreams thought I'd be saying that...hurray for more friendly bacteria!
We buy as many organic things as we can, we're nut fanatic about that either....but when I think about it....pesticides on my food.........gross! Not to mention the milk...go ahead and buy organic milk and regular milk....do a taste test. We can taste a difference. Same with bananas. Those are two things we most definitely will never buy un-organic again.
I can not stress enough that we are not snobs about this. You wanna go and eat at a fast food place, no problem, our treat. No denying it tastes fine.
I just thought some of y'all would be interested in the food life style choices that we have been making in the last few years.
Something Alan pointed out to me one time is that the whole purpose of food is that it is fuel for your body. It's supposed to give you energy. Does your food energize you? A lot of times after we've had what we term as *outside food* like from a restaurant or fast food place we get tired after we eat it. Doesn't seem right. Our food is delicious and nutritious more often then not and gives us energy.


Like the picture above. A pretty typical meal for my sweetie and I....I'm gonna brag and say it's a fricking delicious meal actually. I will admit that the dark green stuff is canned, wahhhh I didn't make it...yet....I'm gonna give a stab at it some time though. It's Palak Paneer and will beat the pants off of say.... processed cheese any day of the week. Palak Paneer is an Indian spinach dish with ingredients that I recognize and can pronounce.
Then on the same plate there's pita bread made by yours Truly, sliced avocado, homemade hummus with parsley and kalamata olives in it, a salsa beside that with parsley instead of cilantro, a dollop of homemade yogurt as a condiment and in the middle yogurt/dill/mint/garlic/cucumber salad.....oh man this is soooo good. I almost can't wait till the blasting heat of summer so I can have big bowls of this on hand to eat in cool as a cucumber comfort.
And talk about FAST food, all of that stuff can be made in big bunches and left in the fridge to provide meals for a whole day or even two. And don't you just love a plate full of a variety foods instead of just one big blob of one kind of food?
Man....I'm so hungry now.
So there ya go.... a small peek in to my life, my cupboard and my fridge...and I suppose into our stomachs if ya think about it.....which you shouldn't.....