Good Eats

I eat like a ten year old. My drawers at work look like a room from Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, filled with gum, candies, and chocolate. And if you asked a couple of eight year olds to go shopping for you, their kitchen would look somewhat like mine and Aviva’s. We have an entire cabinet dedicated to chips and cookies and our alcohol cabinet is filled with chocolate and Snapple. In our house, no meal is complete without a three hundred calorie dessert.

Diet and exercise are an important part of one’s health. Of course, this is all the more so for someone with chronic health issues. A recent study showed that patients who are extremely underweight or obese have a harder recovery time post transplant. Although I blame it on bad luck, perhaps my malnutrition plays a significant role in my two hospital stays since my upgrade. Also, certain diets have shown to reduce the horrible symptoms of Crohn’s Disease. Unfortunately, I could never survive without bread, butter, red meat, and fried food and my doctors have luckily never asked me to. In fact, every time I’m forced to see a dietitian, they are more concerned with me gaining weight than my high cholesterol or other health problems.

Amazingly since my upgrade a month ago, I’ve had some very exciting news about my diet. Because of my anti-rejection drugs I can no longer eat grapefruit or pomegranate. Although I really enjoyed grapefruit and grapefruit juice, I now can no longer feel guilty if I don’t get my daily requirement of fruit. I also can't eat raw fish sushi anymore but that’s a small sacrifice to pay for not having to eat a fruit salad. Even better was the news this week that I had a blood clot! Because Vitamin K increases your clotting time, I can no longer eat foods with that nutrient. Lucky for me, all foods with Vitamin K happen to suck. Kale, brussel sprouts, collard greens, lettuce, and peas were never part of my calorie intake anyway and now I can avoid them altogether. Only ten years after being a vegetarian, then, I’m now only eating meat, potatoes, and pizza.

If you are what you eat, then I am probably the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. My favorite food is pizza which I eat at least two or three times a week. I eat bowls of pasta, mounds of cheese, and anything fried (even eggplant). I love red meat, deli, and hamburgers. And if you want to make me a side dish, make sure its not green. I consider lettuce the “filler” in salads, I can’t eat kale, and I won’t eat broccoli. In fact, almost all my foods are yellow or brown. From chocolate to french fries, I eat foods filled with cholesterol, oil, and MSG. As Homer Simpson once beautifully surmised, “You Don’t Make Friends With Salad.” Luckily for me, I’m not allowed to.