Patty Perfecteater Fixes Breakfast

Patty Perfecteater is hungry and decides she is finally going to combine all the knowledge she’s acquired from many news reports and online tutorials. She decides to have a scrambled egg, toast, fruit, and coffee for breakfast. She actually isn’t sure she wants the egg. Are they saying they’re good or bad now? She gets out her frying pan for the egg. However, she isn’t sure whether to use the stainless steel one or the cast iron one, because she’s not sure if she has a chromium deficiency or an iron deficiency.

Hmmmmm…that brings up a good point. She’s read things about high-temperature cooking and compounds that can form in some foods. Forget the scrambled egg–poached would be way better. Except, if the yolks are runny, she risks salmonella infection. And the eggs—they aren’t even free-range. Didn’t she read something about how the hens’ diet and living conditions can affect the fatty acids in eggs? She only has those eggs from the grocery store she got on sale. She never even thought about the free-range chicken eggs. Obviously, she wasted good money on these good-for-nothing eggs. She throws them in the wastebasket.

Patty moves onto the toast. She pats herself on the back for buying the bread labeled “wheat.” Unfortunately, she remembers something about checking the ingredient list to make sure whole wheat flour is actually the main flour. All she got was piddly enriched wheat flour with molasses to color it. And what was that she heard about that stuff in plastic that can leach into food? Was that only for containers heated in the microwave, or plastic bread wrappers, too? She notices there are preservatives listed on the label. Why, poor Patty realizes she’s riding the cancer express if she eats that bread. Into the garbage it goes.

She’s thankful she bought some fresh peaches, because it would be simply terrible for her to even think of eating canned peaches. All that corn syrup…plus, we don’t know where the cans are manufactured. What if they didn’t get a good coating on the inside to keep the harmful metals out of the contents? What if they did use coating, but that coating was manufactured in China and contains who knows what? Thankful to have something to eat, she washes a peach, scrubbing it with a pH balanced cleanser to remove any wax or non-natural stuff on the peels. As if the FDA knows what it’s talking about when it advises against using soap, detergent, or commercial produce washes!

Just as she is poised for a bite, she remembers there was a report about the 14 worst foods anyone could eat. Peaches were on the list! Maybe she could peel the peach…but since it wasn’t in the “organic” section, any residue of pesticides went through the skin and is in the flesh itself. Or, was it in the organic bin after all? She vaguely remembers it may have been. But what if it got near manure? E. coli would be breathing down her neck. The peach joins the bread and eggs.

Right away she realizes she’s done for with the coffee. Caffeine is evil. Tea would be better. Black would be okay, but she realizes she’s out of green tea, which she’s heard is supposed to be the healthier choice. Maybe she’d make an exception for the tea this one time, even though it obviously would do her body no good. Her stomach is starting to growl. The box of tea reads “decaffeinated.” Oh no! Exactly how was the tea decaffeinated? What process did they use? And did decaffeinating it take all the “good stuff” out with the caffeine? Plus, she never even thought about the bags. Were they chemically bleached? And, she had read that putting milk (cream? ha!) in with the tea prevented some absorption of a nutrient that’s supposed to be good for her. Oh dear…she also realizes she’s run out of stevia, and she can’t use sugar or sugar substitute crap. What good is tea that’s loaded with toxic chemicals that doesn’t have milk and sweetener to mask the taste of the poison? Her garbage can lid doesn’t shut all the way with the last addition of the tea box.

Crazy with hunger, Patty goes to the fridge to get a drink of water to help with the discomfort. To her horror, she realizes the carbon filter on the water line needed to be replaced last week. There’s chlorine and there could have been a terrible accident at the treatment facility and dangerous amounts of giardia may have made it through. Defeated, she collapses on the kitchen floor, sobbing.

And that’s where friends find her, days later. “Starved herself, for sure,” the coroner states. “But it was the dehydration that really did her in.” He shakes his head as he sees the overflowing garbage can. “Poor soul! She must have gotten a sudden case of amnesia and didn’t realize what food is for.” 

Of course, Patty isn’t a real person. However, I get a lot of questions about specific practices, foods, and supplements, mostly from well-meaning people who are simply trying to eat “right.” Patty reminds us that we can take that pursuit too far and become paralyzed by conflicting advice and fear about food. Eat well. Enjoy each bite. If a supplement makes sense for your individual needs, choose it thoughtfully. Baseline Nutrition is one option for those looking for broad nutritional support. Most of all, remember that eating well is supposed to support a healthy life, not take the joy out of living it.