This post has been inspired by two recent articles, one by Money Beagle and the other by Nicole and Maggie. You see, last week Money Beagle made me aware of a new TLC show called Extreme Couponing. On the flipside, Nicole and Maggie talk about their organic shopping experiences. On Money Beagle’s site I made a broad generalization (shame on me) that most of the extreme couponers I’ve run into at the supermarket have been obese. Although that’s been my general observation, I know that not everyone in this genre is overweight. In fact, one of the TLC stars is a young, pretty blond with 6 kids who does not have an ounce of extra fat on her. On her grocery list I see lots of veggies, but in the snippet they don’t actually go into details on how you buy cheap broccoli (frozen maybe?). Maybe I should have instead stated that if I were an extreme couponer, I’d be obese.
I do use coupons, but mostly for non-food items like paper products, cleaning products, batteries, medicine and dairy products. The reason is that we don’t buy a lot from the middle isles. The bulk of my shopping gets done in the produce, meat and dairy section. I do still buy some junky snacks here and there, but in general our food is pretty basic. Even if I wanted to do extreme couponing, most of my stores have a limit of 3 items for double couponing and only do it once/month. I envy those folks in the south and midwest that have stores with more liberal doubling policies.
My morbid curiosity got to me and I went to look for some online videos on extreme couponing and found a snippet from one of the new TLC stars, Amanda. On her shopping spree, it shows Amanda buying a whole assortment of gatorades, 150 butterfinger bars, about 20 packs of pepperidge farm cookies, microwave dinners, and some regular food thrown in there as well. The only thing I saw in the cart that was non-processed were the boxes of pasta. This kind of shopping was really disturbing to me not only because of the quality, but the sheer quantity of empty calories and preservatives she had in those 9 grocery carts. The butterfinger bars alone represented over 40,000 calories and 1650 grams of fat. Buying something just because you can get it for free shouldn’t be your only selection criteria.
My Family’s Struggle with Obesity
Babci weighs more than twice what she is supposed to for a woman who’s 5′ tall. She’s much closer to the 300 pound mark than she is to 100 pounds. My youngest son and I are just like her when it comes to food consumption. The three of us could eat all day long. If I had 150 candy bars in my house, do you know how many would get eaten in no time flat? Yup, all 150 of them. I can’t help but look at Babci and see a mirror into my own future and it scares me. The only hope I have is that I didn’t grow up starving, so I don’t have as much psychological baggage as she has when it comes to portion control. For her, portion control did not happen out of choice, but necessity and she still talks about how she’s not going to deny herself after starving all those years as a child and young adult.
In fact, those 2 months she was in Poland, I lost about 10 pounds and she gained another 20. Of all the great things I’m thankful to have inherited from babci, this is the one area where she is a very bad influence. She definitely equates feeding/nourishing people as a form of love. She often gets upset when I deny her the ability to feed me or my family, even if it’s the middle of the day not one hour after we’ve already had lunch. When I say “We’re not hungry, we just ate” she just dismisses it as irrelevant. What’s relevant is that I’m at her house and she wants to feed me. Having already gained back a few of those pounds I’m getting more snippy at her attempts of feeding me at all hours of the day and it just sucks. Some days when she gets really stubborn about shoveling something down my gullet, I get a little mean. If I had $1 for every time she blocked my way and threw a fork full of food in my face, I’d be a rich woman. Doesn’t she know I love food and it’s already hard enough to say no without her extra zealous efforts?
I know she’s just trying to take care of us, so I’m trying to be better about going over her house hungry and scheduling more time to bring my kids over to eat. My kid’s favorite meal is chicken soup with home made noodles. I know her days force feeding us are numbered, so I’m keeping things in perspective and am thankful that she’s still healthy enough to cook for us on a regular basis.
My husband’s family is the opposite. When my father in law died, no one ate for days. They found no solace in food. I was the only one in the house hoovering up all the comfort food people were bringing over in the days after the event. I definitely eat for reasons other than hunger.
Making an effort to eat healthy, reasonable portions without tons of snacking is a constant struggle and I don’t need the pressure of hundreds of boxes of processed junk to derail me. So, aside from peas, edamame, and sweet potato fries, all my veggies are fresh. If I tried serving rubbery frozen veggies to my family they would go uneaten. Heck, it’s hard enough to get my kids to eat a crisp steamed green bean, let alone the soggy kind from a can. Yup, I have picky eaters. Fruit and Yogurt are easy but veggies are still a struggle. Oh I can’t wait for babci’s garden to get into full swing. Garden fruits and veggies are the holy grail of awesomeness.
So there you have it. There’s a little peek into my struggle with food and family. I love cooking and eating and like my mom, I take great pleasure in feeding others. The challenge is really figuring out how to keep it as a positive part of our lives instead of a destructive one. I hate seeing babci’s mobility affected by her weight. I wish I could somehow take those extra 150 pounds off her petite little frame while maintaining her happiness. I don’t know how to do it and it makes me sad.
Oh, I totally went off topic there. Yes, me and food have a lot going on. I guess I should go back to my coupon questions. What’s your opinion? Would you buy something just because you could get it for free? Would you buy 100 of them? Should I give extreme couponing a chance? At 78, should I just let Babci be fat and happy and stop worrying about it?
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