I work in Midtown West, a mere five minutes from Bryant Park. These warm fall days are perfect for eating lunch in the park. Fresh air and a breather from my fellow intern, Sushi Girl, do wonders for my physical and mental health. On Wednesday, this proved truer than ever:

“LOOK!” Sushi Girl waved a plastic container in front of my face as she plopped back down at her desk. “I bought these California rolls from Whole Foods this morning with BROWN RICE. I feel so healthy.”

It was 1:00 PM: sushi time.

“That’s...Wow, that’s really something,” I said as I pulled out my crushed peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

“What is that?” Sushi Girl asked. “Did that guy passing out sandwiches give it to you on the subway?”

“No! Those sandwiches are for homeless people!”

“I know, but I thought maybe he had extras or something. It looks so used.”

“What do you mean ‘extras’? Like, ‘whoops, I counted an extra homeless person. Hey girl, want this leftover PBJ?’”

Sushi Girl shrugged, indifferent to my incredulous attitude.

“Whatever,” she said breezily. “That sandwich totally reminds me of the time in fourth grade when Adam Stein dropped his peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the floor and then Harry Tingsley stepped on it, but Adam totally ate it anyway, even though it had, like, the tread of Harry’s Samba on it. I, like, shudder to think of it.”

“Well, mine just got a little compressed in my bag. I’m sorry if it brings back such frightening memories.”

“I heard that you’re not supposed to eat peanut butter with bread,” Sushi Girl told me as she diligently mixed a tad of wasabi into her soy sauce. “The peanut butter clings to the bread and makes it harder for your stomach to digest. Then you get this thing called ‘carbo constipation’ where your body has an immensely hard time burning the peanut butter-coated carbohydrates. It’s like, really cutting-edge diet stuff.”

“Wow. I’ve never heard of that before. Or anything remotely like that. Ever.”

“It’s a recent study. Just, you know, food for thought, I guess.” She looked at me and smiled before feeding herself a piece of sushi with her custom ceramic chop sticks.

Her best friend gave them to her for graduation.

They are pink.

Her initials are carved into them.

I’m not joking.

“Well, I’m going to go buy myself a chocolate-chip cookie to go with my sandwich,” I proclaimed with the utmost confidence. “I love eating whatever I want. I just never seem to be able to gain a pound! Weird, right?”


With that, I walked out of the office and headed for Bryant Park.

Just so we’re clear, I did not buy a cookie. In fact, I threw out half of my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. My appetite was utterly ruined with all of that disgusting talk of carbo constipation.

It was at that moment--as I sulked and plotted to replace Sushi Girl’s personal bottle of low-sodium soy sauce with prune juice--that I encountered the Bird People.

To be continued...

Last night, my girlfriend and I stood on the corner of 17^th and Irving arguing about whether we’d have better success picking up non-douchey men who didn’t frequent clubs at The W or at 3^rd Avenue bars. Unexpectedly, the tables turned and we found ourselves being picked up by a group of boisterous men sitting outdoors at the restaurant Casa Mono behind us. We scuttled away avoiding eye-contact with them until my girlfriend glimpsed a pair of bright orange crocs under the table. She firmly grasped my forearm and whispered,

“That’s Mario Batali.”

Me: “No way. Which one? Where?”

“The one in the orange crocs!”

Cue the visual of a large, ecstatic, red-faced man who had his blue plaid pants rolled into shorts and a dishtowel casually draping out of each pocket, who was now calling:

“Let me offer you a glass of wine. Sit down. Sit down!”

When arguably the most famous chef in America instructs you to sit down on a pleasantly warm September night at a quaint outdoor table full of friends, you just do exactly as he says without really processing any of it.

I then tried the best white wine I’ve ever had in my life. I remember nothing except he said it was Spanish and only around $50 a bottle. Batali then proceeded to ask if we were hungry.

I’m always hungry. And even if you aren’t hungry, when Mario Batali offers you food, I think it wise to just accept.

We were then brought a selection of rare cheeses; one aged ten, the others fifteen and twenty years along with the Spanish version of tomato bruschetta. Mario’s a pretty sloppy person, and I mean this in the most generous way. He slapped around these delicacies and stacked them on top of each other before shoving them in our mouths with none of the care or attention to detail you’d expect from an Iron Chef. Clearly, this was just a guy who loved food. A very drunk guy who loved food. I felt like I’d fell into the warm custody of culinary Santa Clause.

The evening progressed surprisingly awkward free. Also at the table was Tom Colicchio, co-host and judge of Bravo’s Top Chef, who Mario thoroughly enjoyed antagonizing.

Four other chefs shared the table, as well as one out of place business man and handsome HBO actor. Mario proceeded to show us pictures of his most recent vacation with his sons on his iPhone while I attempted to wolf down all the cheese without looking like a starving Neanderthal.

We all did some life story sharing (did you know Batali was from Seattle? I didn’t) and I noticed that Mario’s seemingly disjointed outfit was actually somewhat tied together:

His crocs, his large purse (yes, purse. He seemed fine with me calling it that) and the Sharpie marker in his shirt pocket were all orange.

I then started to think about how amazing it was that a man’s whose restaurants are renowned as the Holy Grail of culinary exclusivity could be so well, utterly friendly and relaxed. And when I asked him about this he shook his head wearily and almost looked sad (as much as an ecstatically drunk, robust chef can manage to look sad) and said:

“It’s very hard for people to get reservations at my restaurants. And I hate that.”

So there you go. The creative powerhouse behind New York’s most esteemed restaurants, melancholy like a child that more of the masses don’t get to enjoy his food.

From there Batali and his entourage headed to another one of his clubhouses, The Spotted Pig (or as he calls it, just “Pig.”) As I watched him wobble away towards Union Square on his antique vespa, I was left with that strange hybrid of feelings I get anytime I meet someone famous of:

“Wow! (Impressed) Really? (Confused)”

Then I took myself home to an empty kitchen.

It’s late, well past midnight. I’ve been drinking. Desire has replaced reason. I know it’s wrong, but I can’t help myself. I swore I wouldn’t go crawling back, but it’s just too easy. I’ll hate myself in the morning--more like early afternoon--but, right now, I just don’t care.

I need Veselka.

No, I’m not having a lustful love affair with some Eastern European hottie. Veselka is a 24-hour diner in my neighborhood and I’m there late-night again with a desperate hankering for an egg, sausage and cheese sandwich.

The sandwich is $3.75--far cheaper than any drink I consumed that night. I’m sitting with five of my girlfriends. What is it about drinking that makes our appetites go wild?

If alcohol is supposed to release us from our inhibitions, what does it mean when five girls out for a crazy night in the big city all end up in a diner, ravenous for nothing more than a hearty breakfast?

Maybe it’s a reflection of our reluctance to embrace the real world. All of us are either struggling to find a job or adjusting to the entry-level lifestyle. In this transition, we cling to what we know - that nourishment and familiarity warm food provides.

All of us feel pretty skeptical about the life after college, each in our own ways. I, for one, remain particularly wary about dating. I went to a college in a small town. I knew everyone at the party. This environment gave me the insight to do a heavy background check on anyone that I was interested in. Now that this is no longer an option, I feel a little lost, a little vulnerable. Googling someone isn’t the same as already knowing his three best friends.

Thus, if a guy, a stranger, starts talking to me in the bar, I’m suspicious. I have to assume the worst. Through the screen of such paranoia, friendly small talk is lost in translation. For example:

Guy in bar: “What’s up? I’m Danny.”
I hear: Want sex! Have HPV!

“Can I get you a drink?”
Can I roofie your drink?

"Do you live around here?"
Crabs to give! Herpes here!

At this point I mumble something about going to the bathroom and get out of there.

Such fear is unfounded and unfair, but I can’t help it. I was educated by the D.A.R.E. program. I learned never to take candy from strangers and that if someone offers you an apple, it probably has a razor blade inside of it.

My reluctance to prowl for men has left me reduced to another instinctual hunt: the quest for food.

So Veselka becomes my new late night lover. And maybe the other girls would look at me cross-eyed if I shared my little analysis of exactly how and why I think we’re in here eating instead of out there continuing the party train. For now, we’re sticking to what we know: greasy food and good company.

Maybe someday I’ll accept the reality that shaking hands with a stranger in a bar won’t give you HPV, but for now, I’m happy to call it a night with Veselka.

part 1 here

About the strippers: I didn’t know they were strippers. That’s right. It’s not like strippers on vacation go around gracefully shedding clothes with bills hanging out of their jeans. Bartok and I were just introduced to these three girls (also staying in the house) who had the largest breasts either of us had ever seen in real life. Like biggest EVER.

As she described, “Their boobs are bigger than my butt cheeks.” Actually, they were two times bigger.

We were told they were visiting from Miami. I’ve never been to Miami and therefore just assumed that every girl in Miami looked liked a Barbie with a double-G size chest which cost a lot of Gs. That’s just what television taught me. But these girls were super nice. They didn’t speak unless spoken to (which for some reason, I didn’t find weird) and in an emergency lip gloss crisis in the car (the emergency being I needed gloss in a more pinkish shade of red), stripper #1 bust open her purse and provided me with a lip gloss pharmacy – literally a mini Sephora store with various options in every shade. Then Bartok complained that she wanted blush to make her cheekbones pop. Out of the magic bag, stripper #1 clicked open a blush compact and said,

“Don’t worry, I’ll pop you.”

Full make up service in the back seat of the car! And I think I’m being feminine when I deign to carry gum? I could get used to this.

The next day, after one of the boys in the house mysteriously sent the strippers away (most likely because they’d fulfilled whatever their assigned duty had been the night before, while I was passed out), I, concerned, asked where they went.

“You know they were strippers, right?” He replied.

“NO!” I said. I was genuinely shocked.

“You think normal people have boobs like that?”

“I thought it was normal in Miami.”

He shook his head at me, sighed, and continued to swig a bottle of white wine. Wrong. Wrong Again. About the chef and nightclub Dune here...

Saturday night I dressed up as if I were going to the Oscars since a friend of mine was having a black tie themed birthday party. I’ve written before about my strong dislike of costume requirements when going out. Isn’t being a girl with a thimble size closet, pathetic salary, trying to look modelesque in one of the most fashion forward cities in the world hard enough without additional complications?!

So usually I pooh-pooh events that require I waste extra brain cells figuring out how to not look not like a moron while also incorporating a theme like 80s, Egyptian or toga. Yet when the invitation for a black tie birthday party rolled around, I squealed in delight like an over-sugared child. Practically all women have a collection of prom / bridesmaids / wedding / opera gowns which we’ve only got to cavalier around in once. Any opportunity to debut them once again should be taken advantage of.

This story would have ended swimmingly if New York nights weren’t so utterly unpredictable. My initial plans for the evening ended up being hijacked and I found myself on a completely different social trajectory than a priorly anticipated.

Translation: I never made it to my themed birthday party uptown and was dressed in black tie all night for no reason.

I wrote months ago about the SoHo club Upstairs in an article entitled Ode to Clubs With Food:

At around 3:30 A.M. Upstairs serves snacks. Mini hamburgers, pizzas, and the best freakin’ French fries with sauces that put McDonalds to shame. These snacks unquestionably save my life. Not only do they start soaking up the excess alcohol in my stomach making me feel more like a human being and less like a swirling ballerina in a perverse city version of the Nutcracker, but they’re delicious and Tapas-size so you never end up overeating … So this entry is my love ode, in incorrect poetic structure, to clubs with food. Because I don’t feel I ever fully appreciated this phenomenon.

My evil genius was onto something. Mere months later, Upstairs launched ‘Downstairs’ - not a bar or extension of the club, but a classic diner. In the ‘late night’ tradition of the venue, the diner’s open from 11 PM to 7 AM, so people who like to eat post-party will have someplace to go other than French Roast and L’Express. The quirk? Danny A., Matthew Isaacs and Jordan Harris decided to pay homage to New York nightlife by naming everything on the menu after Manhattan clubs and promoters, past and present.

Full article here

We interrupt our regularly scheduled Punta programming for some brief Manhattan club gossip that I utterly missed. The Beijing nightclub Suzie Wong, mentioned in passing in my post Best Clubs in Every City in the World, is opening in Chelsea in the failed eatery / club experiment that was Pre:Post. Perhaps this is old news for some (I believe Wong is already open). Either I’m clueless, Wong has remarkably bad PR people, or nobody cares.

On a different note, given that it’s a pseudo holiday and holidays make people all warm and fuzzy inside, I’d like to have a sentimental moment with the club referred to over the summer as the Inferno, which you’ve all figured by now out is Upstairs in SoHo above Café Bari. In the midst of shitty nights out, long lines, abusive door men, and unacceptable music, Upstairs, despite it’s highly unoriginal name, has kind of been my knight in shining armor. No, not because I like the baby models, the non-existent décor or the rampant drug use, which has since the summer, has been dramatically reduced. Upstairs is a lifesaver because it manages to be what very few supposedly ‘cool’ clubs are – F U N.

Sometimes, because New York’s a crazy jungle of the most ambitious people in the world who like to involve competition into every aspect of their lives, people forget to have fun. It becomes all about the bottles, all about the door, or all about the girls. And yes, there is rampant bottle service at Upstairs, but somehow, it manages to be a little subtler than it is anywhere else. Why? Because people are actually dancing and having a good time, running between tables of friends, and not embarrassed to get a little whacky. It’s not pitch black, so you can actually SEE people. There’s no snobby décor, so you actually can chill out. There are no cracked out cocktail waitresses teetering around in heels. The place just feels like someone’s ratty living room that you have the privilege of shaking your booty in all night long. It’s comfortable. And there are no doormen screaming for you to “clear the sidewalk” or coat check girls abducting your jacket behind your back. And, the best part:

At around 3:30 A.M. Upstairs serves snacks. Mini hamburgers, pizzas, and the best freakin’ French fries with sauces that put McDonalds to shame. These snacks unquestionably save my life. Not only do they start soaking up the excess alcohol in my stomach making me feel more like a human being and less like a swirling ballerina in a perverse city version of the Nutcracker, but they’re delicious and Tapas-size so you never end up overeating. Cipriani’s Upstairs occasionally busts out small appetizer plates of pasta that waitresses pass around. These 2 A.M. snacks are similarly responsible for sobering me up and getting me back on track with my life – i.e. into a taxi and home.

So this entry is my love ode in incorrect poetic structure to clubs with food. Because I don’t feel I ever fully appreciated this phenomena. And now that we’re out of the Hellish holiday season where over-sweetened ‘thank you’ moments are obligatory, I feel I can truly pick up my pen and give thanks.

Coming up…Punta Day 3…

Since I’m still too ill to go out and party, I’ve resorted to the next best thing – stalking the web for photos of myself partying. Sound pathetic? It is. So I came across a bunch of photos taken on one of these recent evenings and to my dismay found that I look absolutely horrible in every single one (um, no…I’m not providing the links).

WTF?

Usually these semi-professional event photographer people take good photos. Usually I’m out in a place that’s dark enough with such an impressive amount of make-up on that I always come across looking acceptable. Usually, I pass for having a sense of style.

Not on the night these photos were taken.

First of all, I’m wearing a top and leggings that don’t match. Two, the top isn’t a top anyone should wear with leggings. Three, I’m way shiny, and silly, and look lost. Four, my hair looks drier than hay, and fake.

At the particular party where these photos where taken, there happened to also be in attendance a young woman I especially dislike. Everyone has people in this world we scribble on our imaginary hit list, either because they trash talk our friends, are clueless about proper social behavior, are extremely enviable, or have fucked the guy we like (in my case with this woman, all four). The worst part about this group of online photos is that however much I look awful, my nemesis looks fabulous. She’s a knockout in every frame! I’d say we’re tied for the number of photo opts, but while I look impressively undesirable, she’s glowing like a Victoria’s Secret model. Her outfit was also casual, classy, and…perfect.

Guess you can’t win ‘em all.

Other Discoveries…

Milano cookies. They’re great. I vote them Pepperidge Farm's greatest invention, although everything that company flings out the oven is pretty damn good. I’ve had a thing for Milanos since fourth grade. By the time I hit middle school, some crafty market analysts looking to suck more money out of the average American shopper came out with the idea of Mint Milanos, Double Chocolate Milanos, Strawberry Milanos and now in a diet conscious age, Sugar Free Milanos. I’m not a huge experimenter and I hate mint except for when in toothpaste or breath deodorizers, so I’ve been a solid Double Chocolate Milano cookie eater ever since the multi-branding.

So why Milanos and not Chessmen?

Milanos have the prefect amount of sugar in them. They taste great with milk and they’re not large, so you don’t have the mental responsibility of consuming a whole cookie. Plus the package seems to last forever. There are three layers of crunchy vanilla chocolate morsels. So your stash never seems to end. This cookie is the perfect pick me up, not to mention it’s named after one of my favorite cities. Wow. I just realized I’m blogging about cookies. I blame my Dayquil. Moving on…

Not looking forward to…

Halloween. When I got my fist New York apartment I stalked up on candy hoping to coo at some cute kids dressed up as ladybugs or Sponge Bob Square Pants.

No one came!

So staying in isn’t a fun option. Even less of a good time though, seems to be going out. The city’s a madhouse, and that parade is insane. Are throbbing crowds of drunken freaks dressed like Lord of Rings characters people’s idea of a good time? We all know I like an excuse to party, I’ve just never got on the Halloween bandwagon. I hate dressing up. I hate playing pretend. I loathe haunted houses, creepy music and I really, really don’t like being scared (Jodie Foster’s movie Contact terrified me, okay? I’m a wimp). I also feel Halloween has lost a lot of its charm (assuming it had some) and has become an excuse for girls to dress up like especially ostentatious prostitutes and not be properly ridiculed for it. For more visual costume examples, I refer you to Take a Memo’s blog entry here.

So what are you all doing for Halloween? Is anyone feeling the ‘come up with an amazing costume to get into to [insert friend’s name]’s slamming Halloween party’ pressure?

Isn’t life stressful enough?

Between Diddy’s white party, Planet Pink’s silver night and the various Italian toga parties it’s like every evening requires its own special ensemble. Doesn’t the universe know that outfit selecting process for females is intrinsically complex as is?

That’s the end of my rant for now.

Time to sedate myself with more meds…

We all know my feelings about Los Angeles. If you missed the recap of my trip there earlier in the summer you can read it here and here. This time around, I ventured to other West Coast cities: Seattle, Vancouver and Whistler to be exact.

Now I don’t mean to offend, but why every time I cross the border into Canada do I feel like I’m being repeatedly electrocuted with high voltages of boredom? I haven’t quite put my finger on why, but for me Vancouver was void of any spice, energy or flavor. I tried to go partying on a Thursday night and found the streets empty, the bars deserted.

This was the Hollywood of Canada?

Everyone’s annoyingly polite. Everyone follows rules. I also didn’t appreciate the fact that their currency had a lot of heavy coins, heavy coins that weren’t even saving me money anymore since the Canadian and American dollar are now equal.

A charming anecdote: When I was paused on the street consulting a map, a woman sidled up to me and asked if I needed any assistance. My first New Yorker instinct was to protectively clutch my wallet while beating her away with my Lonely Planet guide. Then I realized she was just a nice girl volunteering spare moments of her life to help strangers. After 24-hours in Vancouver, I was really longing for a homeless person to almost spit on my foot or for an enraged cab driver to call me a “stupid white bitch” as I crossed the crosswalk. I wholeheartedly admit that America doesn’t perhaps exemplify the qualities of a great nation (especially now), but at least no one can call us bland or void of personality.

Vancouver did have some upsides though. The city’s on the water, which means the air is so clean that it’s shocking for a Manhattaner to inhale. I felt like I had entered a pulmonary detox, and by the end of the trip my repertory system was functioning better than it had in weeks. The city’s also easy to navigate and has a lot of parking, which is great if you like being able to own and drive a car (which I don’t). Stanley Park is spectacularly beautiful and right in the center of the city. And the food is out of this world. One night I hit up a hot Yaletown restaurant called Goldfish. I had scallops in a mango sauce, duck spring rolls with mint, sautéed vegetables without tons of oil and get this: they had desert sushi! A kiwi, mango, strawberry fruit center surrounded by sweet coconut milk rice, incased in dark chocolate as the ‘seaweed.’ It looked like real sushi, and was served with a passion fruit dip in lieu of soy sauce. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Isn’t this idea genius!?

The infamously beautiful Sea to Sky road that connects Vancouver to Whistler Mountain is undergoing construction to make way for the 2010 winter Olympics. A few cranes and piles of rock here and there did not deter from these spectacular views. This drive is a must do for nature lovers, and I had no idea Whistler (consistently voted best skiing in North America) was such a pleasant summer destination as well.

Seattle is actually as awesome as it looks on the glitzy transition shots in Grey’s Anatomy (speaking of which, are we tuning in for Private Practice - yeay or nay?) The city did not disappoint. Really fresh air, seafood and a great vibe as well. Yet the more I travel in the US & Canada, the more my suspicion that New York is the best city in the world is confirmed.

I’m glad to be back. And I’m celebrating by going out tonight, tomorrow, and probably the weekend as well. Hopefully to some tasteful events, nothing too clubby or trashy (I already have a feeling I’ll be defying this statement Thursday night). And for those of you who all kindly commented on yesterday’s Please Don’t Be Nice article, I have a message for you all.

Stay tuned.

Two years ago, when musing about various elective course options with a group of college friends, I was made aware of a class called ‘Nutrition and Health,’ which according to my sources made “everyone who took it anorexic.”

Paradoxical, right?

And since I spent too many formative years in the sicko fashion world, where anorexia is considered a necessary evil, like a fortuitous strand of the chicken pox, I was instinctively drawn to this idea. A class that made people loose weight? A class that didn’t involve annoyingly fit motivational teachers, weights, yoga mats or crunches? My friend assured me, “Yes. Once you learn what truly makes up the food we eat, you’ll never want to put anything in your mouth again.” I was simultaneously enamored and horrified by this concept.

Now, years later, I’m finally taking a nutrition class. And not in order to lose weight, but rather to make more informed choices about the food I put in my body on a daily basis. Eating right can save you from a lot of scary, deathly diseases down the line. And I’ve noticed that I truly feel better when adhering to a healthier diet. I posses more energy, I write more; I’m more inclined to workout. I’m also generally nicer to everyone I interact with, as I’m not experiencing the emotional pitfalls of ‘sugar high’ and ‘sugar low’ (a big plus as I’m a pretty emotional personal in general, without adding caffeine.) Besides, if we are what we eat, I definitely want to make sure I’m a sleek banana rather than a squishy Big Mac. And if eating right keeps me from snapping at my roommate or swearing at my alarm clock, all the better!

One of the first topics my professor addressed was the amount of mixed messages we receive about food over the course of our lifetime. Newspapers and magazines generate most of this food propaganda, and these sources usually don’t take into account ‘the big picture.’ One day Atkins and his diet are in, the next he’s out. One week Vitamin B supplements are the secret to clear skin; next week it’s fish oil capsules. Right now carbs are bad for us, in two years, they probably won’t be anymore. The media takes a subjective stance on food the same way it does on fashion. Only what we consume has serious long-term ramifications on our health (while the once-stylish orange halter top we wore can only really damage our egos). With the trends constantly changing, even conscious eaters with the best of intentions are being misled. How does the average Chipotle craving, Glamour reading, health conscious girl know who to trust? I really doubt health and beauty magazines are an authority. They’ve been publishing those failed ‘how to have an orgasm’ articles month after month for years.

Those of you interested in eating right read on. Here’s some of the fascinating stuff I learned. I was blown away on the first day!

1. Start thinking in terms of ‘nutrient density.’ Huh? What does that even mean? It means you’ve gotta start thinking proportionally. Choose foods that give you the most nutrients per calorie. Like skim milk instead of ice cream for calcium. An orange instead of orange juice for fiber. (Apparently, juices aren’t even that good for us. It’s way better just to eat the actual fruit and have a glass of water. Who knew?) A can of tuna instead of beef for protein. The goal is always to get more nutrients for the same amount of calories. For me, this way of thinking was revolutionary.


2. Get salad dressing on the side. I almost fell out of my chair when the professor announced that the number one source of fat in a woman’s diet was salad dressing. All the naïve women dieters think, ‘oh I’ll just have a salad,” without analyzing what actually goes into to that yummy mixture of mesculan greens.

3. Diet soda is baaaad. It can’t be rationalized. Diet soda drinkers had the same amount of diabetes as people who drank regular soda. The fake sweetness in diet soda messes with your palate, and your body reacts to it as if it were real sugar anyway. Diet sodas have also been proven to make you crave more sweets. They also limit you from getting good, healthy sugars. Like how many of us have ever downed a Diet Coke and then craved the nutritious sugary goodness of an apple? Yeah, it’s never happened. Instead, we crave salty chips or fries.

4. Fiber is fabulous, but not without water. I pop fiber pills and invest in whole-wheat products all the time. We all know fiber is invaluable to our digestive system. What I never knew though is that fiber can’t be digested by itself. You need to be super hydrated in order for it to work. So start downing water.


5. Dried fruit is not necessarily our friend. Grapes and raisins have the same amount of calories, but raisins contain no water, and therefore aren’t as filling. So you eat way more raisins than you would grapes, consuming perhaps twice the amount of calories, while grapes would have made you full ten minutes ago. Dried fruits also tend to be artificially sweetened (more bad news).

6. Occasionally indulge in the unhealthy things you like rather than eating the ‘low fat’ equivalent. I wanted to kiss my nutritionist professor on the mouth when she announced that if you’re obsessed with Ben and Jerry’s, it’s A-okay to enjoy a small portion every once in awhile. A large, low fat tub of frozen yogurt won’t be as satisfying, usually resulting in eating a lot more of it. And eating more of something that’s theoretically ‘low fat’ isn’t necessarily the best route. She pointed out many eaters view a ‘low fat’ label as an excuse to over-indulge. Most of these ‘low fat’ items aren’t that good for us either!

So I’m no health expert, but my professor is. And I think I’ll be a lot more informed by the time this course comes to a close. I now also understand how ‘Health and Nutrition’ got its anorexic reputation. It’s because as homework we’ll be calorie counting our own diet and writing a report on where we’re lacking nutrients. That means I’ll be literally dissecting all my favorite foods, nutrient-by-nutrient, calorie-by-calorie, and probably tissue-by-tissue as I imagine there will be a lot of farewell Snickers and Pepperidge Farm Cookies tears shed along the way. I’m quaking in my sneakers to dissect my guilty, hangover pleasure food, the Fajita Burrito with guacamole and extra sour cream at Chipotle. Rumor has it that those flour tortillas have more calories than a cup of chocolate mousse. So wish me luck, and happy eating!