New Improved Nutrition!
by healthy eating editor, Joyce Stookey
Summer's here and it's time for lots of enjoyable al fresco dining! Luckily most people know what healthy nutrition is these days, so they won't be spoiling their outdoor culinary adventures with the traditional outdoor summer fare, which is all too tasty and all too little nutritious! Yes, thanks to the new emphasis on healthy eating at all times, you're going to live longer and enjoy more outdoor summer dining fun than you would have if you'd stuck to your dangerous old-style diet!
However, healthy eating doesn't begin and end with nutrition!! Just because you're eating the right foods doesn't mean you're eating them right! To stay healthy you not only have to eat healthy foods, you have to eat healthily! Here are some tips to help you make your summer picnic fun healthy and happy!
- Food which is too hot may cause nasty burns to tongues and mouths. Food which is too cold may cause pain to people with extensive fillings or gingival problems. Serve all your food at room temperature.
- Sharp points on eating utensils may cause injuries to mouth, lips, or tongue. Make sure the tines on your forks have been safely ground down so you can dine in confidence.
- When spreading a cloth to eat on the ground, reconsider and fold it back up. Getting back to nature is one thing, eating amid the excrement of innumerable woodland species is another.
- Public picnic benches are often unstable. If the people on one side of the table get up at the same time, the people on the other side may take a nasty spill. Make sure that everyone at your table is equipped with a seat belt and head protection.
- Crowding at public benches also may lead to injury from wayward elbows. You don't want anyone going home with a black eye, so eat in two-person shifts to ensure that everyone can eat without fear of injury.
- Many eating accidents occur because of distraction. You look away while cutting food and wham!, you've put the knife in your eye! The chief source of distraction at the table is of course conversation. Restrict your conversation to the few necessary requests for food items or condiments and watch as your lost-time picnic accidents disappear!
- Bolting your food can lead to dangerous choking situations. To encourage people to chew their food thoroughly, put a metronome ticking at 80 beats per minute on the table and invite everyone to chew along with it.
- Use only CSA-approved fireproof paper plates.
- Two alcoholic drinks a day are good for your health, so make sure everyone gets their daily quota. In fact, when you're in the great outdoors you're probably engaging in vigorous activity, so you can safely increase that quota to four drinks. In fact, you're probably going to be engaging in more vigorous activity later so make it six. Or so. What the hell, there are all sorts of recipes for punches (or, as I prefer to call them, alcohol shakes) which are so healthy they'll make your head swim. Whip up a batch, or two, and make that the main course. Just remember, the sign of any healthy alcohol shake recipe is that the alcoholic content is provided in part by two or more bottles of alcool. If you can get your hands on some overproof spirits that don't hurt, either. I was at this picnic once, we got so healthy the police asked us to do some exercises for them and then they drove us somewhere but my memory of that is kind of hazy. Man, were we healthy, though.
- In fact, alcohol is so good for you, why the hell should you waste all your time driving back and forth to the picnic? If you scrap the picnic idea then the designated driver won't miss out on his or her daily healthy dose of alcohol. You want to be outdoors, sit on the porch. You know, another nice combo is commercially prepared lime punch, sake, and dry sherry, or, as my colleagues in the helping professions call it, goof. Not mixed together, of course, but a bottle of each consumed in that order. I've been on many a run with those boys. That French vermouth is good, too, and of course summer is the perfect time for pastis.
So you see, healthy eating is as easy as one, two, three. By keeping your health and the health of your family and guests uppermost, you'll have a healthy, happy summer. Here's to your health. In fact, here is to your health. I just happen to have a bottle of health food around if you could just turn your back for a moment because I have this thing about letting people know where I keep it. No peeking. I'll be right back. I'm just going to go get some glasses.
New Improved Nutrition © John FitzGerald, 2002
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