Nutrition Nazi Eats Green. Sees Red.
January 11th, 2006I am - as many of you know - a hardcore Nutrition Nazi. A firm believer in the beauty of complex carbohydrates, I eat multiple pounds of vegetables every day. And just in case I don’t get enough nutrition from the sweet potatoes, swiss chard, squash, and celery, I add some good old fashioned plant pigment - that’s liquid chlorophyll for those who speak hippy - to my Evian
Resultantly, I’m so fiber-rich it isn’t funny (except when getting a rectal exam, of course).
So yeah, because I’m a Nutrition Nazi, I couldn’t resist accompanying my coworkers to the Sweet Tomatoes salad buffet for lunch. If you’ve never been, this place is a regular Shangri-la for Veg Heads like me, because literally 85% of the offerings include garden-fresh greens.
And that pretty much rules, being that roughage rocks my socks (and my buttocks) … but I digress.
Anyway, in addition to some really stellar salads, Sweet Tomatoes also has pasta, soup, fresh baked breads and frozen yogurt. It’s the latter item, the cold confection if you will, that caused the Nutrition Nazi to get a wee bit heated.
It started out innocently enough. Manuel, plopping himself into the booth, held in one hand a homemade sundae. It was beautiful really – A perfect peak of vanilla yogurt was crowned by crunchy, crushed oreos and then drizzled with a ribbon of golden, gooey caramel.
I was cool with the caramel. What got me was the sprinkles. They were freakin green.
“Manuel,” I said, “why do you suppose the sprinkles are green? Saint Patrick’s day is like three months away.”
With a mischievous grin and without missing a beat, my clever coworker said, “The sprinkles are green because they’re healthy.”
And then, because my eyebrows weren’t raised dangerously high enough, he followed up his initial bit of blasphemy with “All green things are healthy.”
…. Um yeah. And Mariah Carey is *not* shoving food in her pie hole any time songs aren’t coming out of it.
Yes it’s true dear hannihaus readers, there are lots of healthy green things, spinach, apples, and split peas, just to name a few. But for every “good” green thing, I can think of a whole slew of others that are not only unhealthy, but are downright nastay.
Let’s take for example:
- gangrenous limbs,
- snot,
- mold,
- and soylent green (it’s people!)
I just want to get something straight here folks. Sprinkles are *not* healthy, even if they are a pleasant shade of pine…. That being said, I will admit there are worse things that you could consume.
mwahahahanni
January 11th, 2006
You had me at roughage, Hanni! It sounds like a totally schweet establishment, I wish there was one near me. But you are completely right to take the sprinkles to task. Possibly they’re assuming that diners will mistake them for pine needles. Not being a fan of sprinkles, I can’t really wrap my brain around the desire to ruin a perfectly nice sundae with them. They just remind me of rodent droppings, honestly. And the idea of green rodent droppings… just ick!
January 12th, 2006
What’s wrong with snot?
January 12th, 2006
sprinkle nazi, sprinkle nazi!
January 12th, 2006
anissaannalise - Ewww, now that I think about it, you’re right. The brown ones do kind of look like rodent poo. Yuck! I will never eat a sprinkle again - thank you.
Dima - Well, it comes out of your nose and typically if something is coming *out* of your body, out of your body is where it needs to go. Plus snot is like really salty tasting, and I wouldn’t play with anything that might raise your blood pressure, right?
ZP - Ooh good one.
January 12th, 2006
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Living up to your health guru status!
January 12th, 2006
Ah this reminds me of my BF, he is all health minded and I am — well lets say I do a lot of aerobics so that I can make poor food choices LOL
Anyways, we are in Wendover (I would explain but just know it is a Mormon oasis of gambling that you don’t have to repent for - nickel slots), and he decides we are going to buy two of the power drinks. Like a HALF HOUR LATER he finally has read all the ingrediants on all the cans and has selected which one has the most nutritional value with the least damaging additives. I turn to him and lovingly say, “Honey you are shooting up caffine into your body, I highly doubt it matters if there is a Vitiman B as well”. Good thing he enjoys my sense of humor
January 12th, 2006
I am afraid of salad places or ordering salads are restaurants, because a lot of them will put preservatives on the lettuce to keep it fresh, and then I have to race to the bathroom in sheer abdominal pain.
January 12th, 2006
Hmmm… Roughage… Candy bar… mmmmmm… candy…
January 12th, 2006
That Sundae looks very healthy to me. In a fake Chrsitmas tree/wreath sort of way.
January 12th, 2006
Dima - What can I say? The Nutrition Nazi is serious about snot.
Sassy8877 - I’ve so been there babe. Not with power drinks though - if you can imagine it, I’ve actually done extensive research on water. Who does that?!
Erin - Are you serious about these preservatives? I know Olive Garden uses a bleach concentrate on their salads and that many chains use bag salad (which is filled with all manner of nastys including, quite often feces), but I hadn’t heard of using preservatives for freshness. You must tell me more.
Christoph - Candy *will not* move your bowels the way brocolli will.
William - Nothing says nutrition like pine needles.
January 12th, 2006
hey, michele sent me.
I’m so unhealthy, at the moment, you’d find it sickening. I’ve stopped running, eating properly, everything.
However, my healthy kick starts next week… going climbing (ickle) mountains with a mate, and I need to get myself sorted out before then.
January 12th, 2006
If you ever meet me, you will want to do a ritual cleansing of my poor preservative ridden body. Or you may be so disgusted that you just throw evian on me and run away.
January 12th, 2006
Also, ketchup is not a vegetable and potato chips are not an appetizer.
January 12th, 2006
All green things are healthy. I never thought about that before. What about Pistachio Ice Cream?
On a side note, I always said I wanted a salad bar in my house one day. It’s still a long term goal.
January 13th, 2006
Elwood is leaving in the morning and url is feeling the blues. Perhaps one should feed the saddness with the brown food group, eh Mochile? Like take two Dove bars, they’re small after all.
January 13th, 2006
lovelesshusband - good to see you. Good luck getting sorted.
Amanda B - lol @ the Evian bit.
Miss Marisol - And french fries are not a main course - can’t tell you how sad it is that school kids in our cafeterias are chomping on fries and then chasing it with sugary, enamel-eating sodas… but I digress.
Janet - Perhaps a better question is, does anyone even eat pistachio ice cream?
url - I don’t want to eat anything that is from a “brown” food group. Makes me think of what food looks like once it’s already been through the digestive process…
But yes, when I feel like I crap, I resort to ice cream as well. For me it’s double fudge brownie, but for you popi, i think dove bars would fit the bill just fine.
January 13th, 2006
This is very strange. I usually have nothing against sprinkles, but the green sprinkles pictures (the entire sundae) does not look appetizing to me at all. Weird.
January 13th, 2006
mrtl - well I did do a pretty bad job of frodoshopping it. Maybe it doesn’t look too tasty because the presentation is lacking. Or maybe it’s because green sprinkles are gross. Admit it, they are.
January 14th, 2006
I ain’t buying that you don’t want to eat anything from the brown food group for even one minute. Former President Nixon said it pretty well: “You can fool all the people some of the time and you can fool some of the people all the time. But you can’t fool all the people all the time.”
January 14th, 2006
Thanks for that link to the Soylent Green entry in Wikipedia! I never know what “Soylent Green is people!” really meant. Now I do!
Happy new year to you too, babe!!
January 15th, 2006
url - I like those foods but I don’t like calling them “brown” foods. Makes me wanna throw up in my mouth a little.
LizzyBennet - No prob lady. I only know about it because i’m totally artsy fartsy. Plus I took pop culture I and II in college… again I’m artsy fartsy.