Cardboard Lunches and Skinny Kids.

I grew up on a great diet.

And I mean GREAT. My mom was a health-nut... Go figure.

Which I am absolutely grateful for, don't get me wrong. I mean, I admire her enlightened nature about nutrition before it was hip, or fashionable.
But as a kid, not many things could be worse.

Let me explain.
I can recall being in elementary school and DREADING the lunch that was packed by my wonderful mother. Dreading, because it usually involved whole pinto beans in a whole wheat tortilla (and let me tell you, in the early nineties, the whole grain tortillas were not what they are today- pliable and much like a real tortilla. NO, they used to be trampled grains in a sort-of circle, that if bent at all would crack-spilling its innards in a certain 7 year old's lap).
Yes these "burritos" were better than many options, better than no lunch at all, and certainly better than egg-salad sandwiches with non fat mayonnaise and onions (talk about a low blow to the nose).

But scent offensive food aside, I dreaded these snacks because as I begrudgingly masticated the entire wheat field in my mouth, the petite, darling kids beside me opened their ziplocs to a PB&J on white bread with the crusts cut off.

But I trusted, with all confidence in the lack of taste in my food, and the pure goodness of my mother, that there would, someday be some serious payoff. (For like most children, I measured all effort by amount of pay-off).

And let me tell you what. Those children, with their knobby knees and plastic wrapped cheetoh snacks, are skinny.
Thin and slim and skinny. And still eating their bread with crusts cut off.

And I am here, seriously overweight, craving anything with flavor, and feeling sort of deprived.
Well, not deprived.
Overstatement.

But at least not fully satisfied.
It's a feeling I better damn well get used to!