A Semi-Miraculous Meal

OK, it's not up there precisely with the loaves & fishes, but the evening before my cog exam, my selection of ready-to-eat meals was basically down to zero, and I admit, I was tempted to eat crap. (My favorite crap in this situation being peanut butter and crackers. Mmmm.) But I happened to have the page of recipes I had pulled out of a recent Nutrition Action Newsletter (about the importance of eating veg) sitting on kitchen counter and my eye fell on the salade nicoise recipe. As it happened, the one ready protein I had to hand was a piece of cooked salmon and I was able to scrounge up salad greens, black olives, bell pepper, and red-skinned potatoes (that I boiled), and ingredients for a balsamic vinaigrette dressing from my fridge. (I did not have little tomatoes or red onion.) It was quick to make, tasted pretty good, and perhaps most importantly made me feel like I was doing myself a favor (health-wise) and was still in reasonable control of myself.


I am not denying that the meal was objectively healthier than peanut butter and crackers, but that the perception of still having my act together enough to made a good choice was probably more meaningful than the marginal difference to my health in having eaten this better meal this one time. After the fact, it really felt like a symbolic act. Eating peanut butter and crackers for dinner does not make me feel guilty or anything like that (I sometimes do it just as a treat because I enjoy it a lot), but I do recognize that it is often the result of being tired / stressed / ego-depleted and not a conscious choice.

I think it's sort of crazy (though not completely inexplicable) that in our society, we have reached this point at which we so often feel that doing "hard work" (which is often just, you know, doing a normal amount of work that is, in the scope of human history, not really that hard) means that we "deserve a break today" - accomplished by eating some crappy food. I don't know if this is just me being psychologically reactant or what, but when I think of that, I think (1) okay people (self included) simply grow up and (2) the last thing a tired, worn-down person needs after a long, exhausting workday is to chow down on crappy food.