Salad - Or, Eat The Bacon

So as I'm writing this I'm eating my version of something called "Pregnant Chef's Salad" from the "What to Eat When You're Expecting" book.  Like everything in the "What to Expect" books, it's full of useful (stern) information with condescending (cute) subtitles.  I altered the recipie somewhat.  It calls for potatoes (in a salad? that isn't a potato salad?) and a can of tuna; I like tuna on salad but I didn't want to eat a whole can by myself.  So on my salad I have a scoop of (a different) quinoa salad and some chopped turkey lunchmeat.  It made me think back to an episode in my first pregnancy, when I was still working in a medical office.

It was a nice office and I liked almost everybody who worked there.  We usually got a full hour for lunch.  Some days, however, were so very busy that the doctors elected to pay us overtime, and we either sent someone to pick up lunch for us, or ate the pizza the drug reps brought.  (Yep, that's what Pfizer does with the money.  They used to bring us pens and kleenex too.)  On this particular day there was no drug rep food left in the breakroom (or if so, it was old Subway sandwiches--they don't age well) and none of us felt we could leave for lunch.

We quickly evolved a plan to send a runner to McDonald's.  The gal who was going looks at me (then about seven months along, I think) and said, "Do you want us to pick you up a salad at McDonald's?"

I wish, looking back, that I'd had the ovaries to say what I was thinking, which was "Heck no! I want a double quarter-pounder with cheese, or something with more bacon if they have anything with more bacon.  And the biggest size of fries.  And a Coke the size of Denmark."

Instead I said, "Oh, yeah, that would be great" and shelled out four dollars for lettuce, parmesan shreds, and two cherry tomatoes.

This is instructive for a couple of reasons, if you look at my thought processes.

1. I was reading "What to Eat When You're Expecting", which pretty firmly comes down on the "fries = evil, greens = holiness" side of the controversy.  As in, "you must make every bite count for your unborn baby who is counting on you".  They repeat the "make every bite count" rule so often that you're led to feel that if you have a bite of ice cream, you're starving your child.  So I went with the greens out of mommy guilt.

2. The gal who was asking me was short, bubbly, easily miffed, and...erm, inclined to embonpoint.  I didn't usually think about this fact, but she'd been telling everyone she was on a diet, and I didn't want to go waving my bacon all in her face.  I liked her.  I also sat close to her and didn't want her to be miffed.

3. The What to Expect ladies also instill a low-grade fear of gaining "too much" weight, though they cleverly never really tell you what "too much" is.  They just insist that if you have heartburn/constipation/morning sickness/stretch marks/varicose veins/sore feet/aching back/shortness of breath or indeed, any of the many complaints of late pregnancy, that perhaps you gained too much weight too quickly.  They helpfully add to this the sage advice that "now is not the time to diet".  (As indeed it isn't, but... what am I supposed to do about my varicose stretch marks?)

4. I had already been assured by one of the nurses, watching a pregnant patient walk away, that they were confident I would never "waddle like that".  So.  Couldn't let 'em down.

On such illogic are our dietary choices made.  On the whole, I'm way happier with my cobbled-together salad today that I made basically because I wanted something crunchy with ranch dressing on it, and I had no Ruffles.

I DO eat healthy food, in case you were thinking I've thrown all caution to the winds with this pregnancy.  But I've definitely thrown fear in eating to the winds.  I think I'm too tired not to eat the bacon when I want the bacon.

Cheers,

Breanna