Forbidden Holiday Foods

Cheese straws, Swedish meatballs, eggnog, stuffed potatoes, creamed spinach, pot roast, fruitcake, and pecan pie were listed by the New England Journal of Medicine as the worst 8 holiday foods to eat, Supposedly they all have too much fat and calories and make the holiday celebrant gain weight. So the journal lists "alternatives" to each. Most of those involve the so called "low fat" and "healthy" foods that substitute the good tasting ingredients with awful tasting healthy ones. Ugh! Health food makes me sick.

Don't the "eat healthy at the holidays" people understand that nutrition for the soul at holiday time means eating the good tasting and fun "junk", not their version of what is good for the body. Holidays are short in duration and NOT about healthy bodies (look at fat Santa for proof). Eating the good stuff for a few weeks won't harm anyone physically, but not eating the fun foods will harm the soul through deprivation. It could turn the fruitcake or eggnog deprived celebrant into a scrooge.

The Christmas and New Year celebrations are not about routines, health and self disciplined. They are a catharsis for us in that we can do all the things that we keep ourselves from doing all year long out of fear of the food police and other "nay-sayers". I wish the health nuts would eat in isolation at holiday time so they won't infect us with their notions of healthy foods.

Are not some of our best memories of past holidays the delicious forbidden foods we ate then? How could anyone idealize and memorialize broccoli and asparagus as a treasured holiday memory. It isn't possible. Why spoil the holidays with tasteless foods when a Chocolate butter cream, filled yule log can be so easily had. When sitting around a fireplace at Christmas would you rather have a cup of hot chocolate and a gingerbread cookie or a cup of skim milk and a no fat granola bar? If you choose the latter no need to continue reading this diatribe. You are already a prisoner of the healthy food police.

And who wants to cook Brussels sprouts during holiday time? Not I! It does nothing for my spirit because it isn't special or "unhealthily good tasting". But when I make a fruitcake or gingerbread muffins, maybe my Christmas cheesecake or holiday decorated sugar cookies I get a lift of enthusiasm and feel bonded to the holidays. It's equivalent to decorating the Christmas tree. How can anyone be sullen when doing that or eating a Santa cookie?

As far as I am concerned, those health nuts and their no fat recipes can all fly to the North Pole. I am going to the kitchen for a glass of pumpkin eggnog and to cut myself a big piece of fruitcake.