Spoons: What is Acceptable.

So as revealed in my last post, I am not at all a fan of spoons.  I think they’re gross.  I hate the way soup broth dries on them, for example.  I think the best way to describe it is that eating most foods with a spoon bothers me in the same way an off-balance picture frame would.  It’s just wrong.

I’ve been having to explain my issue with spoons to people for a long time.
“But you NEED spoons”, they say.  “How do you eat soup?”
There is a list, I tell them, of things that I have approved for consumption with a spoon.
“You can eat anything with a spoon”, they say.  Yes, perhaps you can, but that doesn’t make it right.

So here, in writing, is the list.  These are things that you CAN eat with a spoon, though if you chose to eat them with a fork instead, that would certainly be fine with me.

Soup
Stew
Chowder
Cereal
Yogurt
Pudding
Jello
Ice Cream
Mousse
Peanut Butter

I’ll try to remember to add on to this list if anything comes up that I have neglected at this time.  By way of a parting, here are some foods that one definitely CANNOT eat with a spoon:

Cake
Strawberry Shortcake, even if it comes with ice cream
Crumbles and Cobblers
Macaroni and Cheese
Ramen Noodles
Etcetera

Fortune Cookies

My floor had a Chinese food night yesterday for dinner.  It was fairly good, but I’ve had better- more fun than anything else.  Inside my fortune cookie, there was a blatant bit of advertising:

“You may be hungry soon:  order a takeout now.”

That’s a pretty bold statement, don’t you think?  Our food isn’t very filling, so you’d better buy more for the road.

But that’s nothing compared to the one I found a couple of months ago.  The dining hall was doing a sushi night.  It was weird, that they had Chinese fortune cookies alongside Japanese food, but considering both were pretty American and ripped off it was slightly more okay, I guess.  Everyone else was getting typical fortunes, but when I opened mine:

“What’s that in your eye?  Oh… it’s a sparkle.”

A cheesy pick-up line.  In a fortune cookie.  I was confused…  Is my fortune cookie really trying to pick me up?  I don’t know.  It is not for me to judge, I suppose.  So I have them both hanging in the collage on my wall, smiling down at me with their odd messages.

A Waste of Food

I work in the dining hall here at school.  One of my jobs is to clean plates off so they can be super-rinsed and sterilized.  It’s a gross job, but the thing that disgusts me the most is the amount of food people throw away.

Today I was forced to throw away a whole, unblemished apple.  You might think this was some kind of freak accident, that no one in his or her right mind would throw away an entire apple, especially here where fresh fruits are so scarce.  You’d be wrong.  I throw away a whole apple at least once every time I work in the dish room, and I work there once a week.  So we’re definitely wasting one apple a week, and think of the things other workers must be throwing away!

 I’m not talking about the food that goes bad in storage or the food that gets set out but not eaten.  That’s an unavoidable consequence of a school kitchen and can’t be helped.  I mean the food that people put onto their plates and don’t eat.

“Don’t take more than you can eat.”
“Finish what’s on your plate, or there’s no dessert.”
“You eat what’s put in front of you, I don’t care if you don’t like it.”
 How many times did our mothers tell us these things, and why haven’t we listened?  Why are we so wasteful?

People are starving across the world.  I don’t mean to sound cliche, it just happens to be the truth.  How can we be so selfish as to throw away food when some people have to live with hardly any?

I’m not saying that you will like everything you put on your plate every day.  I’m not saying that if you accidentally take too much food you should always finish it and make yourself miserable.  Just please, please be considerate of amount of waste you create.  If each person attempts to curb his or her waste habits, we can start to make a difference.

Scurvy Prevention Squad.

I happen to be a (self-proclaimed) Co-Captain of the Scurvy Prevention Squad.  Rachel, the other Captain, and I are very serious about the buisness of scurvy prevention.  We reach out to pirates, college students, and other at-risk populations to educate them about the dangers of scurvy and ways to keep it from happening to them.

What is scurvy? 

You may well ask.  Scurvy is a Deficiency in Vitamin C.  It is characterized by bleeding gums and large gross sores on the arms and legs.  Nasty stuff.  It isn’t pleasant at all.  Nowadays few people actually come down with scurvy, but there is always that risk.

Who can get scurvy? 

Historically, pirates and other sea-faring folk were highly suseptible to scurvy because being out on a boat for months on end, they had little or no access to vitamin C.  Today, college students often come down with scurvy because without a parent around to remind them, they often forget to eat vitamin C, or they choose not to.  But even if you are not a pirate, sailor, or college student, you are still at risk.  Scurvy can happen to anyone!

When was scurvy a big problem?

Effective methods of scurvy treatment were not proven until 1763, so it was a problem throughout ancient history right up until the early days of the American colonies.

Where can I contract scurvy?

Scurvy is not a communicable disease, so being near a sick person or in an at-risk region will not affect you.  All the same, no matter where you go your body still needs vitamin C, so you can get scurvy anywhere at any time.

Why is scurvy prevention so important?

Umm, hello!  Scurvy is a dangerous and unpleasant disease.  Fatal too.  Prevention and treatment are super important.

How can I help?

To join the scurvy prevention squad, you must be knighted by a current member.  I will be happy to knight anyone who is willing to devote his or her life to scurvy prevention.  Do not undertake this mission lightly!  Scurvy prevention is a serious and a lifelong endeavor!  If you wish to help in some other way, keep yourself and your friends, family, and aquaintences informed.  Knowledge is key to preventing a scurvy epidemic in our times.

 Here is a list of foods high in vitamin C to get you started on the path to health:

-Oranges, Grapefruit, Lemons and other citrus fruits

-Strawberries

-Pineapple

-the Arbor Vitae tree

-Flinstones Vitamins (These, in my case, are actually doctor recommended!)

-Emergen-C (A powdered drink mix made of vitamin C and minimal sugar.  Mixed with water, they become liquid health!)

-Etcetera

“When Life Gives You Scurvy, Make Lemonade!”  ~Mental Floss Magazine

http://wells.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5144673067

~Emily Schlick

Captain, SPS

One of those mornings.

I’ve had one of those mornings.  The ones where your shift starts at 10:30, but you don’t wake up until 10:26.  So the very first thing in your day is violently throwing the covers off and yelling “OH, S**T!”

Then you throw clothes on faster than you even knew was possible and run downstairs.  You didn’t have time to brush your teeth, so you seize a handful of those after-dinner mints they’ve had sitting out for weeks and shove them in your mouth.  And your sensitive teeth explode in pain as you punch-in on your time card.

They put you to work slicing things for four hours straight.  Cantelope, pineapple, celery, carrots, strawberries, bread.  Four hours.  And if you weren’t wearing a thick glove there’s a good chance you’d slice your own finger off..

To make it worse, there are “too many cooks in the kitchen” today.  Open House has them all running around in a mild state of panic, and there is hardly any elbow room.  Often they are so busy they forget about you, and it takes them several moments of hard thinking to come up with something for you to do that will keep you out of the way.  Not one of them will so much as look sideways at you if he can help it, because it’s all too common knowledge that “Stir-Fry” is having intimate relations with a student, and they don’t want that kind of infamy.

And you sneak bites of fruit when no one is looking, because in four hours no one so much as asks you if you’re hungry.

You learn that all those advanced classes and awards and good grades in high school won’t mean a thing in the real world if you can’t communicate.  Because here in the kitchen they have some kind of ESP or language of their own, and they haven’t let you in on it.  So you look stupid because you don’t understand; you need more explicit instructions than “All right, now strawberries.  What are you waiting for?”

And your eye is always on the clock, counting down the hours, mintues, seconds.

Why excersize makes me feel self-righteous.

“Oh my god, where did that come from?  I know I didn’t bring it with me to college!”

I discovered body fat a few days ago, and it’s weird.

I’ve always had a fast metabolism.  Always.  For as long as I remember, I’ve been able to eat whatever I want.  I’ve never had a problem before.  So when I realized I was gaining weight, I freaked out a little.  Actually, I use the term “gaining weight” a bit liberally.  I haven’t actually weighed myself because I’m too afraid to, but I’m sure I can’t have gained more than five pounds.  It’s more about the way I look and the way I feel than my actual number of pounds.

I spent the better part of middle school trying to gain weight.  I wasn’t allowed to do fun things like white-water-rafting, and my gym teachers always told me I was considered underweight.  When I was thirteen or so I coveted that cute, pinchable fat roll that peeks over a girl’s waistline on her sides and her back.  That was pre-puberty for me, so I was in part mistaking those “love handles” for actual hips.  Nonetheless, I think they can be adorable, but now I know I don’t want them myself.

That’s perhaps the worst part about this weight gain.  I used to think I didn’t care what I looked like, that I’d be just as happy to be an overweight girl as I was to be an underweight one.  But now I’ve found out that isn’t true.  I do care about what I look like, which makes me feel like a horrible person, in addition to being a flabby one.  I feel round, even though I know I’m not, and I feel like everyone notices even though they probably don’t.  I am totally overreacting and I know it, but that doesn’t make me feel any differently.

So in addition to body fat, I’ve also discovered excersize as a form of therapy.  I love it.  Putting physical strain on your body and then releasing it is wonderful, and I feel good every time I leave the athletic center.  So now that is my goal.  In addition to the diet change I instituted a few weeks ago, I have now decided to become a person who works out.  It’s going to be awkward at first, but I’ll get used to it.  And so far it has made me very happy.

Disclaimer:  I am not an anorexic or a compulsive excersiser.  In fact I’m reasonably sure I’m not and never have been suffering from an eating disorder of any kind.  Really.  I love food.  (That’s how I got myself in this predicament.)

I can’t remember the last meal where I DIDN’T eat a banana.

I can’t remember the last meal where I DIDN’T eat a banana.

I love bananas so much, and we’ve had access to a lot of delicious, ripe ones lately. I also know I should get a balanced diet here at school, so I’ve been working hard to get enough fruits and vegetables. It just so happens that on the fruits end of that I’ve been eating non-stop bananas. They are one of my favorite fruits, they are a definitely edible choice among a few sketchy options, they are good for you. I know there are other fruits, but bananas are so easy to peel, eat, and move on with your life.

They say college students gain around fifteen pounds in their first year away from home. The dreaded “freshman fifteen”. Actually, according to The College Dorm Survival Guide that figure is on the low end of what a freshman can be expected to gain. Try more like twenty-five or thirty pounds. Ouch. For someone like me who already feels slightly uncomfortable with his or her appearance, those numbers are terrifying.

It happens for two reasons.

1) Being away from home, college students eat whatever they want. There are no parents to force you to eat your vegetables, make sure your meals are balanced and healthy, or limit the amount you eat. Carbohydrates, sugars, and other satisfying foods make up too large of a portion of college diets because students just don’t realize it’s happening.

2) There is a buffet in the dining hall. So much food, so many choices. It’s easy to eat two or three times as much as you might eat at home because you know they’ll just make more in the kitchen. You don’t have to worry about depriving the people around you of something to eat. Also, there are options. For someone like me with no self-control, it’s easy to eat two meals because you can’t decide which choice sounds tastier. Then there is the social eating. I find that even though I may be finished, I often have a friend sitting beside me who has just started. As a way of spending time with her, I stay in the dining hall to chat. Often, this means I pick up more food just as something to do with my time there.

As a college-aged individual, my metabolism is beginning to slow down. The trouble is, I’ve now trained myself to eat more than my new system can really handle. I feel hungry even though my body needs less. Or I just don’t feel full. I don’t realize that for the most part I have stopped growing, and I do not need to eat as much as I do.

I find myself saying things like:

“Pizza doesn’t have calories, right? It’s just this essential college-kid food that gets swallowed up in the Bermuda Triangle of your digestive system.” If only.

“A day like today calls for ice cream.” Okay, in my defense, we’ve had some really hot weather over here, but you get the point.

Another problem I’ve had is that in trying to balance my meals, I eat larger amounts. I don’t limit my portions, so I end up loading my plate with an entire meal before remembering to include vegetables. Then I get myself a good-sized salad.

The trouble is I’m now living on this many calories, so if I don’t overeat I feel somehow slighted. It’s not healthy. I am working on my habits and my diet, but in the mean time all I can do is exercise more and eat my bananas.