Food Tidbits

Just a few odds and ends I thought you'd like to know.

Do you wonder about all the wax they put on our grocery store apples? I do. I've washed and scrubbed apples before eating them, but I know the wax is still there. It bugs me. So I started scraping my apples before eating.

And yes, if you scrape the sides of your apple with a paring knife, you will get wax, lots of wax. In fact, you can scrape and scrape, and the wax is deeper than you think. I hate to contemplate all the nasty germs and such that are stuck to that wax, in all its travels.

Adam and I eat so many more apples now that we've come up with a faster way to cut them. Instead of the traditional pie-cut method into 6ths or 8ths (I particularly dislike trying to cut the core out of each section, trying to cut in a curve, you know?), we stand the apple on its bottom and cut straight down, as near to the core as we can without getting any core. Rotate 90º and cut again. Works lovely!

This is an afternoon snack I should eat more often.

Speaking of things I eat often, here's that sandwich I usually eat for lunch. Bread/provolone/lettuce/cranberry marmalade/turkey. It's voluminous, but mostly lettuce. I'll admit, it doesn't last me until suppertime, thus the need for the apples and peanut butter!

In Dollar General the other day, we noticed this on the Christmas sale rack -- half off, for $1!

Adam and I immediately recognized these candies from our childhoods, and wanted them purely for nostalgic reasons. Julia was enthused also; it's candy! They're not much of a temptation for me because I'm not that fond of hard candy, but it was fun to see them again and try a few.

And speaking of temptations, I do have something to relate. Below you see two temptations: cheese biscuits on the left, and potato chip cookies on the right. The potato chip cookies in particular are lethal for me; I adore them. And unfortunately, they seem to last forever without going stale or bad. These are the last two of a good-sized batch that my friend and cousin, Tammy, sent to us all in mid-December.

Sadly (or happily?) for me, no one else in the family is fond of them. I do believe, except for the one time I desperately tried to get the church family to eat them by taking the tin to a snack one Sunday, I ate Every Single One. It's a rough job, but somebody's gotta go it!! haha :)
But I succeeded in eating them slowly. It took a month. I allowed myself one or maybe two each day, and sometimes went for several days without one. I could successfully leave the tin on top of the refrigerator and not touch it. It was hard. I did the same with the cheese biscuits.
Strengthening one's will power to resist food requires presenting oneself with temptations and successfully withstanding them. This is the part of weight-loss that I enjoy, because it's a challenge to my will, and I am SO up to challenges to my will! Ha! For once in my life, my innate stubbornness and refusal to back down actually help me do something right.
I even have the ability to stare down a food I really love and throw it in the trash. See below:

Alright, that was a nasty trick, making you look in our trash can. But on the left you see a clump of delicious monkey bread, tossed out by me. Adam made it for church, and some was leftover. Julia ate a little, but Adam and I decided it was dangerous to have about the house. I enjoy the act of taking something like that, looking it square in the face, and throwing it away. It's a small victory, even a petty one, but a victory nonetheless.
It's a victory to leave the cookies in their tin too. I'm glad I didn't have to throw them out! Yay! It would pain me to throw out potato chip cookies, truly pain me. So, it's handy to have resistance power as well.