Eating Fruit

I'm losing weight, slowly. I am assiduously and completely honestly logging every bite (because why lie to myself?) but I am not always planning ahead. I have my sweet every evening, and portion control continues to be a problem in the evening. Breakfast and lunch tend to be naturally portion-controlled and I have no difficulty walking away from office sweets and treats. Though come to think of it, there was one afternoon where I was "needing" to eat, and ended up with 380 unplanned calories worth of peanuts from the candy machine.

I've never been a big fan of fruit. I've had more than a decade worth of eating low carb, and that taught me to think of fruit (and fruit juice) as nothing more than (usually round) damp candy. Certainly the way my body reacts to sugars eaten without protein and fat is unpleasant enough to keep me reaching for nuts rather than candy bars or fruit.  I get thirsty, shaky, and hungry - sometimes all at once.

But I'm rethinking the fruit part. I went off fruit in my adolescence originally during my endless (six years worth of) orthodontia. A more recent reason fruit hasn't been a big part of my life is because I live alone and didn't go to the store often. If I didn't eat fruit the day I bought it, it would go bad. Now, however, I've got to keep fresh fruit on the counter all the time for my vegetable-avoiding kids. I don't go 48 hours between trips to one food store or another. I'm also trying to get lower on the fresh versus prepared scale, both for myself and for the kids. (I have a running dialog with my girl about "real food" versus "edible food-like substances". Yes, I read Michael Pollan.)

Some fruit is fairly convenient - if it's already in the house, and has not yet gone bad.  You just rinse it off or peel it, and eat away. Pop it in the pocket and take it on the road. Works for apples and oranges, peaches, plums, and pears. I've discovered apples and oranges keep and travel relatively well, while plums and pears seem to be at peak ripeness for roughly ninety minutes - if you don't catch them then, forget it.  Peaches are only worth eating when they are in season locally. Paula Poundstone says sometimes she wakes her children up in the middle of the night to eat bananas because she can't bear to throw them away the next morning. I think they are just yucky.  Berries aren't pocketable and mostly you have to combine them with something. Homemade shortcakes with local blueberries and creme fraiche is luscious, but work - a once-a-year effort.  Grapes are hit or miss, but I grew up during the grape boycott years and have a hard time being comfortable with them. The single best thing I ever ate in my life was a melon I grew myself, but more often I can't get ripeness right either in the store, farmer's market, or my own garden. Unripe melons are wooden, and over-ripe ones are sickening. Not to mention the inconvenience - cut it open, clean it, scoop and dispose of the seeds, get the rinds out of the house before the fruit flies show up - you can't just pull it from your pocket and take a bite.

This is my fruit lore.

There are many varieties of apples readily available, and some of the clementines are really tasty - and convenient.  If I use an apple or orange as a snack with a piece of cheese, or after a good lunch with plenty of protein, it seems to keep me going just fine and doesn't blow the calorie budget. It makes me feel healthy to be eating fruit - and please don't anybody tell me that out of season, wrong hemisphere, many food miles fruit not only has a big carbon footprint but also has little of the goodness you get from the local farmers' markets.  Instead, let me feel good about the relative calorie bargain, convenience, cost effectiveness, and healthiness from eating these starter fruits. Let me make fruit a habit. We can work on refining to the "best" fruit after I am fully adjusted to regular doses of these neat little packages of goodness.