Tuesday, July 30, 2013

There before me, splayed tastefully in all its leafy green glory, was a salad. I really can’t remember the last time I had one for lunch–or, honestly, any of the other meal times deemed acceptable by society–but I had to make good on my promise. Presumably a salad should irradiate health, and I think I spied some filtering through the bacon-cheese-egg-chicken veneer of my Cobb.

Jury’s still out on whether this lifestyle change is sustainable, though. The biggest barrier to entry is a bowl of greens simply isn’t my favorite shape of food. Don’t you ever wonder what secrets (i.e. bugs) are nestled away in those crevices of romaine? I do. Broccoli florets especially freak me the fuck out, with their veritable forests of deceit. Having said that, I will full well admit the shapes of food I do enjoy–waffle fries, cheesesteaks, nachos–will kill me in quantity.

There is also the issue of feeling emasculated when ingesting a salad. It’s ridiculous, I know. Part of it stems–hey-o–from the act of carefully stabbing at vegetation with a fork. These are the motions of a kinder, more civilized era. Conversely, there’s a primal thrill to gripping a burger singlehandedly and tearing into it. It is a ritual coursing with power. It’s like you’re screaming, “I am man! Such is my dominion over beef.” Also, coronary.

It’s a curious crosshatch: you crave cow, but you have to eat your greens like a cow, in order to prevent yourself from being a fat cow. All told, my Cobb salad was certainly filling, and I didn’t even finish it. Can a workweek consist of two salad days, possibly three? I don’t know. I still need to determine the optimal frequency–and test the limits of how much the human palate can endure in a given week.