It has been a long time since I’ve had to think about food. For the past four decades, if I was hungry, I ate. Usually from one of the four Mike Taylor-approved food groups: burritos, burgers, steaks, or deep-fried fish and chips. As to beverages, there was only one and it came out of a keg.
Over the years, I heard rumors of other types of food, foods not part of my regular diet. Sweet Annie, calls them “vegetables.” There also are “fruits” and “grains.” Apparently, they come in several different colors and sizes and grow right out of the ground!
She eats a lot of them and always has. Annie claims this is one reason why — though she is almost as old as me — she maintains the physique of a prima ballerina, while I look a lot like John Belushi might have looked by now, had he lived and lived hard.
But I figured that since Annie loves me “just the way I am” (or claims to) it didn’t matter. I mean, I’m old as dirt and don’t really care anymore how pretty I look in a swimsuit.
That was how I felt before landing in the emergency room.
As incredible as it seems, a diet comprised exclusively of burritos, burgers, steaks, and deep-fried fish and chips is not — and here’s another word with which I was previously unfamiliar — “healthy.”
It turns out that 30 years on the Mike Taylor Eat Whatever the Hell You Want Diet (which WAS going to be the title of my cookbook when I got around to it) is the kiss of death. Everything that could be wrong with me, was.
Blood pressure, high; cholesterol, through the roof; pancreas (whatever that is), struggling; gall bladder (another “mystery organ”), kaput. According to the emergency room doc, my next Happy Meal might well be my last meal.
My only option, assuming I didn’t want to eat my way quietly into the halls of Valhalla, was to change my habits. Drastically. Overnight. Permanently.
Since I’m afraid to die (you would be too, had you lived the life I have and possessed even a rudimentary belief in an afterlife) I have chosen to eat healthy. Sadly, I have no idea how to do this.
The doctor told me what I can’t have; basically, anything from my now-cancelled cook book, as well as salt, butter, sour cream, cheese, whole milk, vegetable oil…blah, blah, blah, the list goes on forever!
What he didn’t tell me was what I COULD eat.
All he said was, “whole foods.” I don’t think he meant whole burritos or whole Chinese buffets.
Annie again came to the rescue. To my apartment she delivered bag after bag of food that looks better suited to raising a young horse than creating a meal for a grown man. My cupboards now bulge with things like “oats” and “bran” and “wheat germ.” I believe there may be some lawn clippings in there as well.
I don’t know how to cook food like this! I assume oats aren’t meant to be deep fried. And have you ever tried to grill bran? You can’t!
In the past week, I have eaten (many of these things for the first time): asparagus, blackberries, strawberries, sweet potatoes (NOT the kind they serve at Applebee’s, with all the honey butter, brown sugar and other sublime wonderfulness on ‘em, but just plain, nuked, orange spuds), oatmeal, Brussels sprouts, and yogurt.
And beer? Ah, beer is just a sweet memory.
I…I’m sorry, I can’t continue writing this. It’s too hard to see my keyboard through the tears.
Mike Taylor’s eBook, “Looking at the Pint Half Full” is available at Amazon.com. Contact Mike at mtaylor325@gmail.com.
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