Time to eat right... not to make others rich

"Cut out some of that abdominal fat ewry day by using this 1 strange tip."

"Lose a little bit abdominal fat every day by following this tip"

"Super diet for a flat belly"

These are examples on the ads I get popping up when online. Not quite sure whether to be amused by the strange typos in these ads, or if I should get horrendously upset or just plain offended. The last one would be preferred, as I then could just sulk and be insulted and ignore them with cool arrogance. That is why there would be no wars if women were the ones to lead the world, you know: We would not have wars, but we would have a selection of countries not speaking to each other because we would be jealous or insulted.

Problem is I find it rather hard to be offended, upset or insulted over something which appears to be so ridiculously unprofessional.

There is a business in the town where I grew up which manufactures a diet pill. It is VERY successful. The founder of this company gave many interviews to the media when they first started. He got into a LOT of trouble because of his honesty; he stated that: This is going to be a huge success, basically because people who think they are fat, people who are afraid to get fat and people who are genuinely fat spend any amount of money at all, if they think it helps them losing weight.

I think we, who struggle to keep our BMI down (and we want to keep it down because after all; we have shoes to tie), are trapped in our comfort zone. We all know what would be good for us. To eat vegetables, cut down on dressings and fat, walk short distances instead of driving everywhere. We think we save time on deep fried food and industry prepared dishes. It is, to us, a question of saving time.

For some strange reason we think that while waiting in line for our food to be deep fried, when we sit in the sofa waiting for the delivery man to arrive or while thawing deep frozen food in the microwave before it is ready to be heated, we save a lot of time.

I am not sure what happened to cookbooks, but I know that internet, especially www.youtube.com, is FULL of good recipes, good instructions on how to do and motivation. Use it!  And when I urge you to do so; I do with a reservation. There is a lot of strange food out there. Really. Honestly. Very unintelligible. Fun, but unintelligible.

Commercials tell us that microwave dinners, take away and semifinished meals (just add water, oil, eggs and/or cheese etc…) saves time and are easier to cook. It is not the truth. The truth is that meals like these are so full of salt, hardened fat (to prolong the expiration date) and sugar, we can’t even recognize the dish. But the industry stuff this kind of prefabricated food with so much salt, fat and sugar, which is really cheap, it is really bad for us... in spite of us believing we cook ourselves.

My grandfather used to say: Red is pretty and sweet is tasty. True, but so are many other colours and tastes.

We eat in front of the TV, or at our desk while working, not paying any attention to what we eat or how much. To eat becomes an unconscious thing we just commit. Almost like a habit. We stuff food in, chew and swallow. Taste, texture, the feeling of becoming full are absent, because our mind is set on focusing on something else.

I would really like to take back control on my money, my time and my health. I will never be skinny, and I would not want to be. If I am to watch everything I eat, I would turn out very boring, not as adventurous and too preoccupied with my appearance. I enjoy the diversity of nature and its fruits way too much to limit myself to brown or white food only.

I want all those fraudulent businessmen who think they can cheat me into making them rich, while making myself miserable, to be proven wrong. I want to spend my money on foods I enjoy both shopping (to go grocery shopping can be quite an adventure), prepare, eat and enjoy while eating. I refuse to swallow it down with a diet pill or some powder or sawdust bar, in a hopeless quest to become closer to the media created ideal of a body. I don’t want my food to be something I purchase and eat just because it is time.