The $15 Sandwich

Day 1. I wake up feeling like a kid on Christmas morning.  Enthusiastic sentiments are racing through my head faster than they should be at 7:30am. “Oh boy. It’s here! I am so ready for this. I was born ready.” I get up. I go downstairs. Wholly distracted, I don’t even notice my dog this morning. Time to take on the world of healthiness. It does not get healthier than me, from now on.

I look in my cupboards. I look in my fridge. I go back to my cupboards. 

Uh… what do healthy people eat for breakfast?

Perhaps now would be a good time to enlighten you about my previous experience minding my diet, or lack thereof, to be more accurate. This may give you some perspective on the steep, uphill climb I am facing with this whole endeavour (which could be likened to a novice rockwall climber tackling Mount Everest).

Well, I could spend hours and use almost all of the negative words in the dictionary describing my daily food intake… or I could just tell you what I might typically eat in a day, and allow you to formulate your own judgments:

•  A cup of coffee for breakfast (maybe a piece of white toast with peanut butter, if I’m feeling “hungry”…which is rare)
• Another piece of toast with peanut butter for lunch (unless I’m out… in which case, fast food).
• Some variety of fast, frozen, or processed food for dinner
• A conglomeration of junk food mixed in to supplement throughout the day
• Almost no liquids, apart from the occasional pop

On the best day of the year ever, I might manage something like this:

• A glass of orange juice and a piece of white toast with peanut butter for breakfast
• A tuna sub for lunch, a la Subway
• A piece of breaded (frozen) fish with a tiny serving of rice and some frozen packaged veggies for dinner
• Less of a conglomeration of junk food mixed in to supplement throughout the day

Such a day would be celebrated as a miraculous success. But to be quite honest, even all of this is atypical. I usually consider meals to be optional. I frequently forget to eat lunch. Sometimes I forget to eat breakfast AND lunch. And don’t even notice. 

Yeah…food has not exactly been a priority.

You may have noticed that none of these food options involve cooking or kitchen preparation of any sort. That is because my current skill level with cooking does not extend far beyond toasting Eggo waffles. Okay…so I’ve boiled water before too (I can see how impressed you are as I type this). I’ve even followed one or two recipes in my lifetime, with great effort and moderate success. But I have no idea how to piece any of it together to create an ongoing food-making regime that could last more than 24 hours. The mentality surrounding food in my house has always been “eat to live”, so nobody ever spends much time on it (my mother did her best when I was younger, but gave up as I grew older and gravitated towards McDonalds over home-cooked vegetables). Thus…I’ve never bothered to learn the basics. And now, well, here I am. Staring blankly into my cupboards, wishing things just came labeled “healthy” and “not healthy” to make my life a little bit simpler.

Cognizant of the fact that I am meeting a friend for breakfast anyway, and overwhelmed by my lack of kitchen-savviness, I settle on a light, fail-proof option: whole wheat toast, with jam, and a glass of orange juice. Phew. Got through that one. 

So my friend, Michelle, and I meet up downtown. She’s read my blog. She knows I need to find something healthy. We settle on the Eaton Center. (Because a mall is exactly where one would expect to find a nutrient-rich meal…). And this is where the real trouble begins. The Eaton Center has recently unveiled a brand-new food court, which resembles a mecca for all things culinary delightful. The trouble is, well, first of all, its breakfast. Bacon, eggs and pancakes, while delicious, are not going to cut it for me and this project anymore. So my options are extremely limited. We do a couple of laps. I spot a vegetarian restaurant. Aha! Vegetarian food is unfailingly healthy! This has gotta be a safe option. So I go up to the counter and order a tomato and avocado sandwich, with a freshly-squeezed grapefruit juice. I am feeling pretty awesome about it. Until the price pops up. Fifteen dollars? Like, as in, one five, fifteen? For a sandwich, a small pile of greens and a small grapefruit juice that I could have squeezed myself for a dollar?? Take a look…

Michelle’s ever-so-delectable-looking breakfast bagel, in comparison, costs a mere few dollars. Oh boy. The moral of the story here is that healthy eating is not cheap. If I want to protect the meager finances left in my bank account, I am going to have to get on learning how to cook myself, and soon. Hmmm.  Before I can learn how to cook, I need to learn how to grocery shop (properly). Before I can learn how to grocery shop, I need to learn about proper nutrition. Time to buckle down.

Until next time…

xo Janine