The Food Problem

As many of you know I like to view almost everything in life as a problem to be solved.  To be more specific:  a problem to be solved once.  For example, I was an avid fan of Sudoku puzzles until the day came when we got a Sudoku assignment in A.I. class to write a simple backtracking DFS solver for Sudoku puzzles.  I wrote it, tested it, and decided that I had effectively just solved all Sudoku puzzles for all time, so there was no point in scribbling any more numbers on paper.

I've tried to take the same approach to eating.  I've gone through many, many failed solutions in order to ingest low cost, healthy meals without doing any work or thinking about it.  I tried paying someone to make meals as suggested in a book called the 4 Hour Work Week;  turns out I'm not rich enough for that to make any kind of sense (also people give you a ton of shit if they find out you've tried).  I tried cooking for multiple days;  those attempts mostly ended because the ingredients rotted in my fridge before I got around to using them.  I tried using a crockpot--that ended up being even more work than cooking normally, and got twice as many dishes dirty.  Then I watched Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, and, of course, bought a $400 juicer that is very noisy, consumed fresh fruit that goes bad quickly, and takes nearly an hour to clean.  And the juice goes bad in days, so you can't even make a weeks worth, or even three days worth, at once.  Needless to say, the juicer hasn't done much.

However, this story has a happy ending:  the blender.

It was my understanding that blenders had one purpose in life:  making milkshakes for my 8 year old self.  I mean that's kind of cute that other people put other objects in them, but I had absolutely no concept that these were anything but milkshake generators.  It turns out, that if you buy a $350 blender (yeah, I know) it can blend frozen fruit.  While its still frozen.  Without thawing first.  Not only that, but afterwards, you basically just rinse it with water.  For funsies I like to go overboard and blend water, just to be sure its clean.  Takes all of five fucking minutes.

So, then in addition to the frozen fruit, I add soy milk, kale, and a banana to cover up the kale.  Many people would call this a smoothie...I really just think of it as a sugary kale delivery system.  If you are unfamiliar with kale, look it up.  It has an amazing set of nutrients.  And it tastes like shit.  But very good for you.  Oh, and then at the end, I always have to add like way more soy milk just to make the resulting mixture a liquid.

Before we go any further, I would like to remind everyone that I am not a vegan, vegetarian, or any kind of hippie.  I mean, I would prefer to not eat cows that have spent their whole lives wading through a river of their own shit, choking down feed they can't digest, only to be bathed in chlorine just before I eat them, however, I happily drink milk and eat cows, pigs, chickens, deer, and I wouldn't feel guilty about eating horse.  I unfortunately am slightly lactose intolerant, and/or am for some other reason unable to eat cereal with milk for every meal every day (if I was, we wouldn't be having this conversation).  I know this because I've tried several times and my digestive system was very cross with me afterwards.

Anyway.

Where was I...oh ok, so, fruit smoothies.  With actual fruit.  I'm pretty excited by this.  The fruit may add an unusual amount of sugar for early in the morning, but compared to my daily doughnut, its super healthy.  Also, all of the objects I'm putting in the blender are real, actual food.  Like plants out of the ground food.  Well, except for the soy milk, but that doesn't seem to bad either.

The downside is the blender is the loudest kitchen appliance I've ever heard--makes the juicer seem quiet.  Also...well right now that is the only downside I know of.  I mean there is a slight concern that people will think I'm some kind of Seattle hipster asshole for making smoothies with kale every day, but for the moment that would only make me fit in better here anyway.

I am on day 5 of having one of these every day;  mostly for breakfast, so I think this is going to last.

Oh shit.  I forgot about the protein powder.  Your supposed to add some of that too, for reasons I didn't really pay attention to.  Probably has something to do with protein.  So I guess that part isn't as natural.  I mean maybe you could just dump a chicken tender in there; you're mileage may vary.

One other downside...its not as filling.  Yet.  Maybe my body will get used to the deluge of the nutrients it desperately needs, but for now I'm hankering for a frosted doughnut.

[Edit]
Homonyms for Chris.

Interestingly enough, according to the Wikipedia nerds, your/you're and their/there aren't homonyms.  I did not vote for that.