How do I say no to somebody who sincerely offers something that I know is bad?

No, this is not a solvent–sniffing kind of a dilemma or a kill–someone–for–me kind of a deal. This is, as you all know by now, about food.

I am aware that, in all honesty, that somebody, a woman I’m going to call Lady in Red, does not know that the item she gives out can kill me or her or the entire population in the long run. She is a very kind and generous person–a saint trapped in this wicked earth– a well-respected citizen and a very talented and skillful human being. However, she is not health conscious.

Every time I see her, she always hands me a bar of Baby Ruth. She is giddy and glad when she gives me those sweet nothings.

Growing up, I loved Baby Ruth, and she knows it that’s why she gives me those to make me happy. But I am a grown human being now, yet somehow, she thinks I still party with that candy.

The last time I remember eating Baby Ruth was when boys like me still had Alyssa Milano in the category of Babe To Be Imagined.

I am in a conundrum. A problem that even high-minded physicists would find more difficulty in solving than the problem of Dark Energy.

What am I going to do with the Baby Ruth bars that I have amassed in my fridge?

I can’t throw them away. I can’t give them away to kids on Trick or Treat Night. I can’t share it with anyone and more so, obviously, I can’t eat them. Why? Because I know it is bad.

If I do any of these options either guilt or diabetes will cause my demise.

But if I don’t do anything, Baby Ruth will eat my fridge and I would have no more space to even cool a slice of lemon.

What should I do? I don’t want to hurt Lady in Red’s feelings by asking her to stop. What’s the best way to handle this?

As I write this blog, Sheryl Mae, with arms folded, and deep in thought, is looking inside the fridge like Edwin Hubble peeping into a Black Hole.

Help!

PS: I am investigating Organic TV dinners and will post something about it tomorrow.

I mean, seriously, how could a heavily preserved and frozen packaged meal be called organic?

If there is any real struggle in this quest to eat real and healthy food, it is the struggle to avoid junk. It is the epic battle, the ultimate confrontation, and the war to end all wars. I am fighting it.

If Junk Food Anonymous exists, it would be me who would have founded it. Yes, I am a recovering addict. I dug my claws into every bag of that stuff and grabbed the chips like how a trapeze performer would grab the arms of his or her partner after a mid-air somersault.

I ate microwaveable popcorn like everyone else: grabbing a handful and stuffing it all in my mouth with speedy precision. The only difference was I did it with a sinister grin.

I was addicted like that. I felt like I have taken advantage of the world every time those pieces of Doritos cracked inside my mouth. I felt victorious–high like a cokehead. I ate junk with purpose-with conviction.

Now, I am off it. Thanks to the wealth of information I acquired about the many evils of unreal food. But do I ever get tempted to wash down a mouthful of chicken nuggets with bubbly soda? Hell, yeah. Everyday. It is like the devil himself assigned several of his minions to tempt weaklings like me to open that can of soda, dance around a tray of Lays, stuff myself with nuggets.

It is real war. A real struggle. Here I am, resisting multi-billion dollar companies that spend fortunes on marketing so that I succumb to my cravings. I flip a magazine page and lo and behold, a glossy advertising spread of a gorgeous girl in a bikini somewhere in a tropical island munching on corn chips. I stare, I shake, and I drool. I open my smart phone and there it is again:  a buy one take five special offer from a popular doughnut store.

We all know how bad junk food is. It causes diabetes, hypertension, heart ailments, and cancer, and yet, it is still out there being marketed to all of us like we need it. Heroin kills but we don’t see billboards promoting it. Neither do we see a Superbowl commercial exalting the wonders of Speedball. Or a cannabis TV spot with mayor Bloomberg saying he approves the message.

When I checked the ingredients of most of my favorite junk, I was convinced that these are killers on the loose. There is nothing natural about this food. It is a creation of the industry to make money out of surplus corn and make each and every one of us size XXXL.

Here’s a breakdown of the ingredients that make up a bag of Doritos Tortilla Chips Natural Ranch and you’ll see:

Ingredients:

Whole Corn, Vegetable Oil (Contains One or More of the Following: Corn, Soybean and/or Sunflower Oil), Corn Maltodextrin, Salt, Tomato Powder, Corn Starch, Lactose, Whey, Nonfat Milk, Corn Syrup Solids, Onion Powder, Sugar, Garlic Powder, Monosodium Glutamate, Cheddar Cheese (Milk, Cheese Cultures, Salt, Enzymes), Dextrose, Malic Acid, Buttermilk, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Sodium Acetate, Artificial Color (Including Red 40, Blue 1, Yellow 5), Sodium Caseinate, Spice, Citric Acid, Disodium Inosinate, and Disodium Guanylate.

Wow, some of the stuff looks like when mixed together could create a nuclear bomb.  What are these? Red 40, Blue 1, Yellow 5- sounds like Bioman to me.

Disodium Inosinate and Disodium Guanylate? These are MSGs in disguise.

Now let’s compare this to the ingredients of a real traditional homemade tortilla.

Ingredients:

For the corn flour (Nixtamal)

3 cups dry corn kernels

6 cups water

2 heaping tsp. pickling lime

When the dough is made, they combine it with these:

pinch of salt
1 cup warm water.

Wow! That’s it! What a difference!

All the ingredients are familiar. So familiar, I think I can make tortillas myself. Perhaps, I could bake these so it becomes crunchy like chips? I don’t know.  Of course it wont be as tasty and perhaps as addictive as Doritos, but at least it is real and not some thing made up of Biomen and atomic bombs.

As I continue my struggle to keep myself junk food free, I do hope that many of you dear readers are in a similar quest to know what’s in the food you are eating. We deserve to know what we eat.

Links: Doritos Tortilla Chips  ingredients • homemade tortilla ingredients/recipe.