An Open Letter to: FOOD

(a few years ago I wrote this heartfelt letter on my personal blog. Excuse me if you've already read it. But I re-read it today. And it's still so stinkin' true, I had to SHARE!)





Dear Food,

I am finding it very hard to like you. You have made my life hard, and my stomach squishy. I just cannot continue to act like there aren't problems, major problems, between us!!

For example, why exactly do you find it necessary to make me feel so wonderful as I ponder what variety of you I'm going to consume?

But then you violently turn on me as I digest you, and feel you filling areas in my belly and thighs.

That's not the kind of behavior you should be showing a friend.

You insist on haunting about 80 percent of my thoughts daily. I find myself pondering on you during the darndest times. I think I thought about you while on the potty today.

And technically...that's thinking about one thing while getting rid of that same thing on the flip side!! Weird!!
 
I KNOW I think about you after the "marriage deed" and I won't admit to thinking about you DURING that same deed. (But it may have happened...)








You have infiltrated one of my favorite things to do. Watching television.
Damn you Food Network! And also damn the hour long Sunday afternoon specials on the best places to get doughnuts or Philly Cheese steaks.
Seriously.












I think potatoes are the devils tuber. You call them food...while the world (and my metabolism) call them "cellulite".
Why do you offer them in such amazing forms?
Why can't you just offer them in one form?
At least that way I'd have a fighting chance. But no!
You must fry them, french style.
And you must add cheese to them.
And you must sell them by telephone with a dipping sauce that is clearly made with a tad of heroin!!



(a Utah institution called "The Training Table"....for all you out of towners.)




(That's illegal, food. Seriously, a felony!!)


Speaking of the devil. 
(And how you and he are in ca-hoots!)
The devil is clearly the father of all things sugar.
You and he work together to tempt me with sugar 24 hours a day.
It's more than he's ever tempted me for anything.  

And I thought the whole "we're engaged but can't do anything but hold hands" was temptation.

But truly, that's nothing like having your husband call and say that he's at the store...and "would you like a treat?"

It's obviously some sort of pact you have with him. To deliver hormonal chicks into his everlasting damnation!





I dream about visiting a real live Candy Land.
(Like Willy Wonka style) where everything is edible.
And the clouds are made of marshmallow creme, and the rivers flow with lovely buttercream frosting.
And are populated by schools of Swedish fish.
The swings are hung by red vines.
And when you gnaw on them you fall on your bum.
 But that turns out to be okay because you land on a tuft of the inside of a 3 Musketeer bar.








Now food, don't get me wrong. I love you. I have a love/hate relationship with you.
I even love the healthy things you offer.
I'm not a fair weather friend, only accepting the "fun parts" and rejecting all the parts that are harder to digest.

I really like your "roughage."
And I particularly like that roughage....
with dip.









But the more I love you...even the healthy you....the more I hate me. And the more the buttons on my too small jeans hate me.
Because they can barely perform their assigned duties... 
it's very difficult to hold back a ton of water, with a dam the size of a dime!










The unfortunate thing about our relationship, is that no matter how bad you are for me....I must continue seeing you, eating you, and pooping you. For without you I would cease to exist. You aren't like most vices. I cannot go to a meeting and learn how to put you out of my life. That is why I face such a dilemma.

And so, food, I am writing this letter in the hopes that you and I can have a healthier and more limited relationship in the coming year.
It doesn't mean that I don't love you truly, and that I always will.
It doesn't mean that I won't use you to feed my feelings. (I just don't know how to stop doing that)

It does mean that I will try not to sit down and eat obscene amounts of you in one sitting, and then regret it for the rest of the night.
It does mean that I will try not to make whole batches of marshmallow popcorn with the intention of giving it to a neighbor...and then end up eating all of it myself.
It does mean that I will try to eat more of your salad varieties, and less of your cheese varieties.






I'm hoping that this will be a contract between us. And that if I live up to my end of the bargain, you will promise to stop making my butt live in a separate zip code.
And that you will allow my boobs to fill my bra, but not overfill it until I have 4 boobs instead of 2.
And that you will make it so that when I sit down, and think I may be having a female problem, that I can check discreetly with out having to lift up my stomach roll.




Please take this letter, food, with the love and concern with which it is written. And let's see if you and I can't find a better relationship in the upcoming months.


Love, Me  
{Ellie G}