A Cart Full of Smug

When I buy healthy food, I want people to notice.

I want them to walk by my cart - piled high with produce and whole grains and beans and sprouted bread and organic free range hormone-free brussels sprouts - and think to themselves: "Wow, now that's impressive. I wish I could be half as healthy as that woman."

I want to wander the produce section of the grocery store, choosing organic apples with a small serene smile on my face. You can buy your white bread, and your chips, and your processed cheese product. In fact, I want you to buy them, because it makes me feel even better about myself.

Please understand, I won't look at you or judge you personally. I won't even notice you. But I will give myself a smug little mental pat on the back as I wait for you to pay for your overly processed, overly packaged junk food. So many chemicals. So much plastic. Starving baby koala bears the world over shed a tear of sorrow.


The contents of my cart: smug and healthy.




No?

Nothing?

A bit disappointed, I pay and walk out with my canvas bags, still feeling healthy and morally superior.

And all is well until about an hour later, when I start wanting a snack.








And then, at supper time, I have all of these fresh ingredients, just bursting with phytochemicals and antioxydants and rainbows and unicorn breath.

But the chopping.

And the cooking.

And the cleaning.


After a few weeks, I have to hold my breath and sort through drawers half-full of mushy, rotting produce. And also, we're out of cereal again.

Once every month or so, we have a movie marathon day (or - last weekend - a Dexter season 2 marathon day). We buy a bunch of junky snacks and skip meals altogether. On those days, my cart is not overflowing with smug. Instead, it's overflowing with shame and cancer and giddy excitement and chocolate pudding.

When I unload the bags of chips and chocolate and candy onto the counter, I avoid eye contact. "Don't notice, don't notice" I whisper over and over in my head as the cashier slides each bag over the counter.




And the guy behind me in line?

He's buying spirulina, and chia seeds, and gogi berries, and hemp protein powder, and psyllium. I don't even know what half of that stuff is, but it's just so good and healthy and smug. He's wearing a marathon t-shirt. I slink away in shame.

We get home, pop in the DVDs and tear open the bags. And we eat.


And eat. Until...








Tomorrow, I'll be healthy again! I'm going to go grocery shopping and buy only healthy, life-giving foods.

Maybe the smug will work for me this time.