How Learning to Cope with Life Has Changed My Relationship With Food

By CL Bledsoe — NOT ANOTHER TV DAD

I’ve always had an uneasy relationship with food, like an ex I know will be bad for me, but I keep coming back. Sure, I’ll feel bad tomorrow or some time in “the future” (ha! Like that time will ever exist) but for right now, I’m happy eating as much as I can until it hurts to eat anymore. Then I’ll take a break, so I can eat some more later.

When I was growing up, my family didn’t talk about healthy food. It was a concept I wasn’t familiar with until much later. They talked about what tasted good. I remember my brother sopping up grease from the skillet with a piece of white bread and eating it. Steaks and cake multiple times a week. Much of the food we ate was healthy in certain ways — we lived on a farm, and the produce and meat we ate was usually organic by default. It was also fresh, locally sourced. Veggies were great if you battered and deep fried them. Salad was something we ate on hamburgers.

Every meal included at least one piece of white bread, rolls, or biscuits. Even pasta. I remember when my family came to my college graduation. I didn’t have any Wonder Bread, so they were hesitant to eat anything. I tried to explain that the wheat bread I had actually had flavor (unlike Wonder bread), but no takers.