Sometimes, being a healthy eater can make it feel like you're at war with other diners.
Right now, my future mother-in-law is freaking out because my fiance is bringing me home for Thanksgiving dinner. "I have no idea what to make a vegetarian for Thanksgiving!" she has said to him numerous times over the last few weeks. "It's fine Mom," I've overheard him say. "She'll eat stuffing and mashed potatoes." "If that," I think to myself, quickly calculating how many hours I'd have to spend at the gym to burn off a meal full of nothing but starches and carbs. Welcome to the inner monologue of a healthy food snob.
Throughout your eating experience, you've likely encountered plain old food snobs who won't eat anything unless it's cooked in truffle oil. But a healthy food snob is an entirely different beast. Healthy food snobs eat food not necessarily because it tastes good, but because it's better for you. Healthy food snobs are the ones at the bar who nibble on the hummus plate while everyone else eats nachos; the people who bring vegan brownies made with prunes instead of butter to a coworker's office birthday party. And let me tell you, it is not an easy existence.
First off, you need a thick skin, since most people will get defensive once they hear what you order. This summer, I vacationed with my fiance and his hometown friends at a lake house in Michigan. After five days of veggie burgers (well, cheeseburgers for everyone else), chips, dip, and one never-ending tray of baked ziti smothered in shredded mozzarella, we decided to go out to dinner. While everyone at the table ordered the house specialty of fried fish and chips, I opted for a soup and salad, and then braced myself. My fiance, also well aware of what was coming next, sighed.
"That's all you're getting?" one of the girls asked me. "After these last few days I just feel like I need some vegetables in me," I replied. "I don't think we ate that badly," she shot back, clearly a little insulted.
Tomato, tomahto, I thought, silently wondering how anyone could think that meals where the only vegetables involved were ones dehydrated in cream cheese could be considered healthy.
I have a reputation among friends as being "the healthy one," a label I don't mind and only feel guilty about after I give in to a plate of (usually someone else's) French fries. (And even then I'm only eating two or three.) When I juxtapose this existence with that of my future husband's friends—who hail from a city with fast-food chains solely devoted to a meal of spaghetti with chili and cheese on top—it's easy to see why my eating habits can be perceived as a bit high-maintenance, if not outright annoying.
But being an annoying dining companion is the least of my worries. People don't understand how hard it is to be a healthy food snob—sometimes it's difficult to even get a cup of coffee. If I'm not near any of my go-to coffee shops, it can take so long for the barista to find soy milk to put in my coffee I worry it may be expired. Faced with a menu full of fried foods and overstuffed meat sandwiches, I once baffled a diner kitchen by asking for a lettuce and tomato sandwich on wheat toast. "No bacon?" the waitress asked suspiciously. (And then later: "The cook wanted me to come back out and make sure I heard you correctly—just lettuce and tomato?" "Yes." "Not even cheese?")
Worse yet, I've been shunned from dinner invites because of my perceived healthy-eating superiority. One friend has stopped going out to dinner with me because she says that the perceived vibe of "you think you're better than me because you eat vegetables" was growing too strong and would ruin our friendship. Tired of meals that consisted of beans and polenta, my fiance once planned a dinner party and told me to find something else to do that night because, as the party consisted of nothing but slabs of meat, there would be "nothing" for me to eat there.
So why do I bother, you ask? Because it's how I like to eat. And believe it or not, I do actually enjoy food. In fact, I think I enjoy food more than the average diner, even more than the plain old food snobs, because I know how hard it is to get a meal that is healthy and tastes good. Being a healthy food snob is not an easy existence, but it's one I'll take if the alternative is a high risk of heart disease, cancer and stroke. There's nothing tomato/tomahto about that.
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