Food fuels our bodies so we can function. Everyone will think about food at some point in their lives. While some people only eat to stay alive, others of us live to eat! Say it with me: I LOVE FOOD AND I AM NOT ASHAMED! Food is the greatest thing that exists. People have evolved to discover ways in which to derive pleasure from eating food; otherwise, we wouldn’t have restaurants or cooking shows. Cookbooks would be unnecessary. All we need to survive is the nutrients, so why not put some meat and greens in a blender and drink it down?
We don’t do that because food is something that can be enjoyed. It provides an easy social activity (dinner party, anyone?) and gives you something to do in an awkward situation (oh, hey, I need to eat this appetizer now). Every culture has its own way of preparing food, so the choices on what to eat is endless if you’re adventurous. The stomach is always willing… These are 15 struggles you might find all too real if you love food.
You wake up and go to bed with food on your mind.
Via: weheartit.com
Perhaps you dream about your favorite bakery or diner right before you wake. You can just taste that croissant and cream and berries, and you open your eyes. Your stomach growls. Now, most of us will wake up hungry. People who love food, though, will not be able to skip breakfast. Mornings require breakfast. Maybe even two breakfasts, like starting off with a coffee and bagel and ending with fried eggs, potato hash browns, and turkey bacon.
When the day is done, you’re still thinking about food. Your head hits the pillow and yep, food crosses your mind. Maybe you review what delicious meals you had today, or perhaps you plan out your snacks for the next day. All this thinking about food means that you might need to get up in the middle of the night to nibble on some leftovers. They need to be eaten anyway, right? Right.
Your middle name should be “Hungry.”
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When you’re not eating food, you’re thinking about eating food. You dream about food and would give up everything to be around food. Living close to as many restaurants as possible is an important mission in your life, and your goal is to eat at every food place in your city and perhaps even the country before it’s your time to go. Your top 20 restaurants know you by first name and you have a loyalty card at all of the gas stations that serve food. You go through sub sandwich punch cards every few days just to earn that free sub, and you have your pizza places listed as emergency numbers for when you’re craving a pepperoni with extra cheese.
It’s not always that you’re physically hungry. Not quite. It’s a hunger for the good things in life. Good things come in the form of cakes, doughnuts, pizza, stir-fried vegetables, and barbeque chicken wings. The taste of food satisfies your sensibilities and improves your outlook. Nothing is like that first bite. Nothing.
Saying no to dessert or seconds should be considered a crime.
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If someone offers desserts or seconds, you are unable to say no. The word “no” stops existing in your vocabulary when there is food involved. Will you have seconds of that chocolate lava cake? Yes, yes, you will. Everyone else might pass on dessert, but you want it and must have it. Dessert is a reminder that life can be enjoyable and worth living. That piece of chocolate cake represents more than just chocolate with frosting. It means that you’ve earned your right to enjoy the good things in life. It means that you can treat yourself because you deserve it.
Dessert is too wonderful to go to waste. Why even bothering making dessert or offering it if no one is expected to eat it? It’s only logical to order that slice of decadent cheesecake. You’re keeping that cheesecake from ending up in a landfill. See? Good deed, done. Any way you slice it, you have to eat that piece of chocolate cake. Or two.
You eat three square meals a day. Twice.
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No one knows for sure how the whole “three meals a day” mentality came about because it isn’t a natural inclination. According to the American Heart Association, how many meals you eat isn’t as important as the ratio of how many calories your body takes in daily and how much you expend. So, eating three meals a day isn’t a hard and fast requirement for being healthy. It might even be incorrect.
You should eat when your body requires energy. Choosing a healthy snack would be preferred, of course, but eating six or seven small meals a day can actually help you and be really good for maintaining your sugar levels and overall health. Maybe start the day off with a first breakfast of oats and fruit with your coffee then have a second breakfast about two hours later of scrambled eggs, wheat toast and jam, and apple chicken sausage links. If you find yourself doing this anyway, you most definitely love food.
You only go to events that have food.
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Isn’t the whole point of going to an event to gorge on the appetizers? Any event that doesn’t have food is probably an event that no one should attend anyway. People come from work to these events and probably haven’t been able to go home and eat. Events should include tables heaped with food, from appetizers to full entrées and desserts. Wine would be an added bonus. Events should have enough food that the catering team will be allowed to take home leftovers; they’re hungry too, you know.
Not everyone agrees with this belief, and that’s why it can be a struggle when you love food. Food needs to be near you. You need to be near food. Food is the reason for your continued existence. Having access to the nearest food is extremely important, and you must comply with the call of food upon your life.
The way to your heart really is through your stomach.
via memebase.cheezburger.com
It’s not love if your significant other won’t feed you. That’s why you only date people who cook or who are willing to take you out to eat. Some people think love means diamonds or flowers. No, they’re wrong. Your stomach dictates your passions. Your appetite determines your decisions, even your bad ones that involve white raspberry cheesecake and your cousin’s ex-husband and his brother. But your stomach rarely leads you astray. You trust your gut. Literally and figuratively.
Love can mean so many things, but true love can only happen over spaghetti and meatballs with a side salad and soft rolls slathered with real cream butter. True love is breakfast in bed. True love involves fresh ingredients sautéed with devotion. The first time you fell in love had been over pad thai, and it won’t be your last.
Making food is annoying when you’d rather eat it.
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You might be a great cook, but the time and effort it takes to make great food is too much when you must have food now. To combat the need to have food always on hand, you can prepare most of your meals at the beginning of the week and either freeze or refrigerate them in order to heat them up when you’re ready to eat. Having homemade oatmeal bars with goodies like chocolate chips or dried fruit for on-the-go hunger can go a long way as well.
If it’s difficult to cook while you’re hungry, you probably shouldn’t go grocery shopping before you’ve eaten. You’ll buy what you’re craving for that moment. Cravings can change from day to day and hour by hour, and any food you bought while hungry might not interest you later on. Eat a snack before you head to the grocery store and then stick to your shopping list. Your wallet will thank you.
Relationship status: Hungry.
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You love food so much that if you could have a real relationship with it, you would. The main problem is that you’d eat it. Eating your relationship would be bad for the relationship. Wait, no, it wouldn’t. Food completes the circle of life, and it completes you. You are what you eat, right? That’s okay. It means that you’re sweet, salty, and savory, a well-rounded human being with really good taste in the company you keep.
All of your best memories, though, are connected to food. Remember that time you visited the Empire State building and ate a funnel cake while looking down on the city? Or maybe that time you made the fluffiest cake with your mom for your friend’s birthday as a surprise? Baking cookies brings up fond memories, and you could totally hug that roll of pre-made cookie dough if you didn’t want to eat it in 10 minutes.
Going two to three hours without food is too long.
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Maybe it’s your metabolism, but you start getting hungry a few hours after eating. Being away from food for two to three hours is too long. Why have you been separated from delicious things? The smell of pizza wafts through the hall, and you’re on instant alert. Check your watch. It’s been a few hours since you’ve eaten. That signals your tummy to growl, and now you have to have a slice of pizza. If the pizza doesn’t belong to a friend, you might have to order your own. One way or another, though, you will satisfy your craving.
Going so long without food is probably what it’s like to be in a long distance relationship. How can you stand it? How do you deal? It’s torture! Absolute torture! Food can’t send you emails or write you loving texts, but it can make a difference in your life. You have to find food, even if it means shaking the vending machine until it pukes out candy bars and potato chips. You will not be deterred from your mission to eat.
You plan your errand running around where you can stop for snacks.
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Okay, so, you need to walk the dog, drop off your dry cleaning, and pick up your mail from the post office. That means you can hit the hot dog stand in the park, stop by the coffee place next to the dry cleaner, and get take-out from the Chinese place next to the post office. Planning your food stops while out running errands keeps you in a good mood because you’re not missing out on the great food opportunities in your city.
What happens if construction changes your route? You just plan your outings based on different food stops along the way, of course! You know when new food places pop up. That’s how much you pay attention. You have a sixth sense about food, and you know where to get it. You might even have specific days for visiting certain food places, like Mondays are for lattes and Wednesdays are for pizza. You got this down.
You can direct anyone in your city to any place based on which food places are nearby.
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“Uh, yeah, take a left at the McDonald’s and go about three blocks before you turn right at this little diner,” you’ll say to a tourist who asks for directions. “You should see a coffee shop if you walk another block and that bookstore is right next to it. A hot dog stand is there, too.” Plenty of people use landmarkers to give directions, but all of your landmarks happen to serve food. Go figure. That’s how you know your city. Your city has great food, so it should be celebrated!
If a restaurant closes, you’ll be the first to know. Hopefully, another restaurant takes its place. Losing a food place can be devastating when you have so many memories there. Because you have mapped your city based on the food places within it, a restaurant closing truly changes the look and feel of your town.
You know how to stash food in your purse, pockets, or briefcase.
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You come prepared with sandwich bags and saran wrap in case there’s an opportunity to take some food with you after a party or event. They’re just going to throw away the leftovers, right? You’re helping to keep food from being wasted. You’re also ensuring that you have something good to snack on when you’re on the train for three hours just to get home.
Over time, you’ve gotten really good at being to hide your stash without anyone noticing. No one needs to know that you have meat and cheese and a small bottle of wine in your handbag! Cookies make great carry-on snacks, and so do brownies and cupcakes. Cupcakes can only be stashed if your bag is large enough; otherwise, they might get smashed. Plan accordingly.
Eating can sometimes make you late.
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You get up late from your nap and rush to get dressed. Great! Now you only have half an hour to get to work, but it takes about 45 minutes when you make your usual coffee stop. This is a tough decision because you really, really, really that particular coffee and their particular pastries for your morning to go well. Have you ever chosen to stop and get your usual coffee and muffins even though it will make you late? Oh, the struggles of loving food (and being a creature of habit)!
Making sure you get in your meal before you head off somewhere is extremely important. You don’t want to risk going too long without eating, so you risk being late to meetings and appointments instead. Your closest friends are used to it. Your boss, on the other hand, might have an issue with it. Instead of being late all of the time, it might be better to work out your time so that you can get your on-the-go breakfast treats without missing the train to get to work or getting stuck in rush hour. It’s possible.
Your french fry addiction should be enough to send you to rehab.
via pixabay.com/mematic.net
No, there is no such thing as French Fries Anonymous. Much like pizza, eating french fries triggers the feel-good hormones like dopamine in our brains. It’s no wonder we want to eat more and more and suffer from french fry cravings. French fry addiction is a real thing, and you’re very much a french fry addict. You have to order a large-sized fries when you make a quick fast food stop. Just thinking about fries means you can already taste them in your mouth.
Unfortunately, fries often come loaded with salt. Too much salt can cause health problems and should be avoided. How can you do that when you crave fries? It’s possible. Ask for unsalted fries when you order them at a restaurant. Bake your fries instead of dipping them in oil and don’t add any salt. If you don’t like the idea of fries without salt, then limit how often your have fries. Order a salad most of the time. Make fries a special treat.
Too many doughnuts, too little time.
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The greatest struggle for those of us who love to eat is that there isn’t enough time in the day to eat everything we want to eat—not to mention that we also have physical limitations to how much we can eat without getting sick. In a perfect world, we could eat and feel full and still eat without suffering any ill effects. You’d be able to eat as many pastries as you want and not gain unnecessary weight. Eating should be more than just getting nutrition. It can be pleasurable to eat. It’s something that you enjoy, something to be treasured.
It wouldn’t be inappropriate to eat doughnuts while giving a speech. But we don’t live in a perfect world. At some point, even those who love food must take a break from eating. That’s okay, though, because we have another snack break scheduled in five minutes. See you at the buffet!
sources: heart.org, webmd.com, teens.drugabuse.gov
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