Time Line

Upon considering the latest evolution of my dietary habits, I present for your consideration, friends and enemies, a time line:


1996ish:
I decide to become a vegetarian. This decision was the result of a bet with my oldest friend, K (who at the time was simply my first male friend, my first antagonist, and my first unrequited love). We were on the phone with each other, each eating pizza. He told me his was plain cheese because he was a vegetarian. Mine was probably sausage and mushroom. He then suggested that I lacked the will-power to give up meat for a month. I suggested that he put his money where his mouth was. He teased. I taunted. Ours was the kind of epic junior high love story about which Newbury-award-winning YA novels are written.
As a result of that conversation, I became a what I now call the "Lazy Veg." The LV avoids obvious meat. The LV is willing to pick off pepperonis rather than insist on a separate cheese pizza. The LV rarely reads the list of ingredients. If it says "vegetable soup" then it's veg enough for her.

1997ish:
After being asked to prom - as a sophomore! - by a senior! - and in an effort to lose my baby fat in time to fit into my Nicole Miller prom dress I become a "Serious Veg." I attempt to learn how to prepare tofu. I drink soy milk for the first time; I buy SoyDogs to eat at football games. Instead of just omitting meat, I start adding more vegetables to my diet. I check the labels for everything and am dismayed to see just how often the first ingredient in "vegetable" products is chicken stock.

1998:
For Lent I give up cheese and lose 5 pounds. Result? I become a Lazy Vegan. Similar to the Lazy Veg, I actively avoid eggs and dairy products but am firmly in the "what I don't know won't hurt me" camp. I still eat pasta and bread made with eggs and butter. I start packing my lunch every day (or ordering giant salads from the cafeteria - "no egg, no cheese, no dressing") and become known at the lunch table for my random dishes of sauteed veggies and ugli fruits.

2000:
I go through a phase where I eat primarily food in bar form. After my early morning run/weightlifting, I chow down on a Harvest Bar in the shower while listening to Faith Hill or the South Park movie soundtrack. Hearing "This Kiss" still tastes like fake chocolate chips and humidity. If I was running late, I'd eat my bar on the bike ride to school. For lunch I hang out in the music room with my secret boyfriend and eat a Balance Bar with a bag of baby carrots. After school was more running and a couple hours in the weight room before some vegan meal for dinner. I also consume an unhealthy amount of diet pills. Hydroxycut before they outlawed ephedra was a rocking trip. When I was weaning myself off of the pills that summer, there were a few afternoons when I simultaneously had heart palpitations and was unable to keep my eyes open. On one memorable occasion, I was afraid to fall asleep because every time I started to nod off, my body would forget to breathe.

2001-2002:
I go to college and can't for the life of me figure out why people don't like the dining halls. I mean, what's not to love about gigantic, all-you-can eat salad bars at every meal? And fresh vegan bread? I go on 5am runs around campus, timed to end just when the delivery trucks unload at Gund dining hall. I make friends with the lunch ladies (one should always befriend the lunch ladies) by offering to help carry in boxes. So on the non-delivery days the ladies still let me in early for the first pick of the fruit and warm, homemade granola. I also start skipping lunch in favor of a second and third workouts, a habit I have to this day.

2003-2006:
I leave Kenyon for the branch of OSU in my hometown. I go through several random phases with my eating. There's the summer I refuse to eat anything but fruit smoothies with chocolate soy powder in them before 5pm and dinner. I switch from fruit smoothies to fruit salad and peanut butter eaten straight from the jar. I go back to eating only bars for lunch. There's a few months where I eat only salads and popcorn for dinner.
I get in the habit of "mono-eating," that is, I pick a food for the day and eat only that. i.e. a box of cereal for dinner, several tubes of crackers eaten over the course of the day, a loaf of bread etc. This quirk becomes the root of some my more, *ahem* endearing dietary restrictions, necessitating the (sometimes debilitating) compulsive planning of meals. For example: if I eat nuts for an afternoon snack, I can't eat pasta or bread for the remainder of the day. I can sometimes convince myself to eat granola or a bread with a lot of seeds in it. Popcorn and pretzals can be eaten on the same day, and popcorn and potato chips - but not pretzals and potato chips (and tortilla chips don't combine at all). I can't eat raisins and grapes on the same day. I can't drink wine on a day that I've eaten either raisins or grapes (unless grapes are the only fruit I have consumed that day - then I can drink wine). I can't eat regular nuts and nut butter on the same day. I can't have more than one kind of protein (soy, fake meat/cheese, nuts) in a single day. I can't eat raw tomatoes and sauce/ketchup/tomato-based salad dressing on the same day. I can't drink beer and eat bread on the same day. I can't eat dried fruit and fresh fruit on the same day. These are (unfortunately) only a few of my rules.

2007-2008:
After a near grad-school-career-ending nervous breakdown, I decide to try raw food. I spend my tax return on raw cook books and a super schwanky juicer. I start drinking Green Lemonade every morning which is a good start but I am still stuck in the mono-meal craziness of going days compulsively eating only rice cakes and peanut butter, boxes of cereal, or loaves of bread. I eventually break out of the depression, start eating lunch at the dining halls, working out 3 and 4 times a day again, and move toward being "RBD" (raw before dinner). I spend my stimulus check on a super schwanky blender and start making my own salad dressings. I discover the amazing weight-loss powers of eating nothing but raw fruit and veg all day, having a small dinner, and then drinking all night.

Early 2009:
Having found some measure of happiness eating 70-80% raw and 100% vegan, I decide to start experimenting in the kitchen. I attempt more intricate recipes; I add vegan baked goods to my repertoire. I'm still compulsive about the foods I eat in a single day and what I eat in ratio to how much physical activity I've done. But being in the kitchen becomes a joy rather than a chore. I find it easier to avoide mono-meal snacking if I plan out a labor-intensive vegan dish for dinner. I also decide to combine by heretofore unused degrees in creative writing and new-found love of vegan cooking and venture into the wide world of blogging.

Now:
After almost two weeks of 100% raw eating I'm hooked. I'm making noodles out of zuchinni, "cheese" out of nuts, and am currently experimenting with my first batch of dehydrated flax seed crackers. I am desperately searching my budget for the money to get a spiralizer, a better mandolin, and a food processor. If I can find some space on my kitchen counters, I think I'm going to try sprouting some seeds. Exciting times indeed. Crazy, exciting times.

***

Looking back over the past decade and a half, Roomie hypothesizes that by the time I'm 40, I'll be eating nothing but hydroponic grass. Indeed it does appear that every couple of years or so, I look for a new way to make eating out or having guests over for dinner impossible. My eating habits are both liberating and limiting.

I know I have a compulsive personality and it doesn't always make life easy - on myself or others. Maybe by chanelling all that obsessive behavior into one aspect of my life - food - I have kept it from adversely impacting anything else...or, at least, not as adversely as it could. But I still worry about it. I worry a lot. I am often wracked by guilt-tinged panic attacks at just the thought of having to stop eating raw - even in the context of world travel...a honeymoon...

Ha. If I want a good night's sleep I should probably stop thinking about it. Instead I'll focus on the veggies I have marinating for my lunch tomorrow and my dehydrating crackers. Raw food is not for the weak of heart.