Somehow I’ve Gained a Reputation

Somehow I’ve gained a reputation with my co-workers for being “the healthy one.” I’m not displeased with this moniker, but it did puzzle me the first time I heard it. I don’t prance around the bank telling everyone what I’m eating or not eating (though now I frequently get asked). I don’t berate those who eat fast food every day. I am, however, not particularly good at masking my feelings. It is very possible that when someone near me is drinking Mountain Dew at 9 a.m. or eating 2,000 calories worth of fried food for lunch again I might curl a lip in disgust. This is unintentional, because I know how I eat. And while, yes, I might be the only one in the bank who brings homemade lentil or baked potato soup (made with organic soy milk) for lunch I know that I sat on the couch last Saturday and ate an entire pint of mocha almond fudge soy ice cream while I watched Inception. I do not wish to cast stones. I know it is sometimes easier and more pleasurable to have a bowl of cereal for dinner rather than cook a balanced meal, and I sometimes do this, but it is far from the norm.

 

Perhaps then my reputation has come about not from preaching against unhealthy eating, but from simply eating healthy myself. My work week lunch never comes from KFC, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Bojangles, or Carolina Fine Foods (please help me). It is also never made by Campbell’s, Progresso, Weight Watchers, Healthy Choice, or Kraft. It doesn’t include anything from Coca-Cola or PepsiCo. I eat real food prepared predominantly by myself alongside fresh fruits and vegetables. My meals include, apparently, unfamiliar and unusual ingredients such as lentils, quinoa, and chickpeas. These things, unfortunately, are enough to make me stick out amongst my colleagues like a single raisin in a bowl of oatmeal (thanks to Thomas Sowell for the word picture). Are being fit and eating good, unprocessed foods such an anomaly now that I am an oddball? Apparently so. How sad. 

Question: What's your food rep?