Rules for Eating (and nod to the sour cream caulk gun!)

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     I used to eat at Taco Bell all the time. It was great. I mean, who doesn’t enjoy boiled meat and dubious nacho cheese that never hardens? Mmmm. I did. And what about that sour cream caulking gun? Ingenious, right?

“Excuse me, Ma’am. Could you please caulk me some more sour cream? I didn’t quite get enough the first go around.”  

“No problem, Ryan. Because of our sour cream caulking gun, that will only take me about 2.5 seconds to add some more.”

Brilliant.

I’d love to go back in time and meet the enterprising youngster who thought of putting a tube of sour cream into a caulking gun, instead of, I don’t know, caulk!

But this post isn’t really about the sour cream caulking gun…or anything else we could throw into a caulking gun (leave any ideas you have for the caulking gun in the comments below!), it’s about why I stopped eating at Taco Bell.

For that, I’d like to thank, at least partially, journalist and food activist Michael Pollan who wrote (among many other things) a brief little treatise called “Food Rules” which is worth the afternoon it takes to read it (and the few bucks to buy it). In it, he describes his rules for eating, including a three-rule rubric that I have adopted as my own:

1. Eat real food (sorry, dubious nacho cheese that never hardens)
2.  Mostly plants (he champions a mostly vegetarian diet for health and humanitarian reasons…as do I. I will post recipe ideas for healthy, meat substitutes in later posts...keep your eyes peeled!)
3.  Not too much (Chipotle Mexican Grill gets an exemption on this one…only because it is just too delicious. I would have no problems breaking this rule if I suddenly discovered 3 Chipotle burritos sitting in front of me. If I’m going down…I’m going down swinging! Chipotle!)

It’s by these three rules that I eat, anymore. The difficult reality, however, is that eating by the first two rules raises the cost of your shopping bill, at least some. And while it truly is unavoidable, my hope is to bring you less expensive options that fit within these rules and that won’t break the bank. Next Monday I will be posting a great recipe that will replace your mundane (and probably not so healthy) Sloppy Joe brew - that kids will also love! So don’t be discouraged, because hey, at least rule #3 helps keep the bill down all by itself!

            Long live the condiment caulking gun!