I Have Food Issues

Oooooh, I could go on about the food issues and family. (I’m just a big cannoli tube of issues.)

Have you ever noticed when big groups of family (and sometimes even friends) get together to go out to eat spontaneously—like when choosing restaurants outside your hometown—everyone’s too paralyzed to make decisions? The indecisiveness isn’t explained as stemming from a group’s lack of planning or the unwillingness individuals collectively demonstrate when it comes to taking charge of social situations. It’s credited, sometimes subtly, sometimes not, to needing to consider the person with the difficult diet. Sometimes it’s the person with allergies, sometimes the one who as a child was a picky eater, sometimes the person on a diet. And much of the time, the label of difficult diet-person is a reflection of the group's perceptions and anxieties more than being grounded in any sort of reality.

For years, it’s been me who has been labeled difficult. I'm the vegetarian who makes finding a restaurant in a new city such a hardship. Me, who can pretty much eat anywhere, even at steakhouses, because I’ve never met a green salad or baked potato I didn’t like. Of course, eating salads and side dishes instead of entrees makes other folks uncomfortable--c'mon, splurge, you're eating out! And so late-night dinners or default dinner choices tend to be credited to looking for a speciality restaurant for me. Meanwhile, I keep an energy bar in my pocket and sneak bites as the inevitable debates turn into delays. [By the way, I do offer restaurant suggestions, generally ignored, before stating I am amenable to eating at the restaurant decided upon by either group consensus or majority preference. I do not share my energy bars, though.]

Lemming Thought of the Day: Apparently, our American Puritanical streak doesn't extend to moderation in dining, at least not when we're eating out and hoping to get "our money's worth" from a meal--defined by quantity over quality. No wonder we're an obese nation. I give up. Please pass the cream sauce and bring me a steak as big as my head.