Package Too Big

We're talking meat here. No not that. Although I can't seem to get the message across to Irisovitch Jevon, Allie Holt and the rest of the spammers either, the problem today is the meat packages from the market. Ever try to feed a family of one?

Once upon a time, I could not be bothered cooking meat at home. The sports nutritionists used to tell us wannabee athletes to live off pasta and rice cakes, with small amounts of other stuff every few days. Getting the other stuff "out" like at a restaurant or lunchtime sandwich stop was no problem. Neither was boiling water and making two pounds of pasta at home. Fast forward and now we've learned that doesn't work out so well, especially when you're no longer churning out 300 mile training weeks and are approaching the dark side of Book-em Danno, he's Five-O. Despite being intelligently designed (obviously!) I'm not one to resist my own personal evolution, and thus continue to participate in the learning process of life. A few years ago I drastically reduced eating in restaurants, nearly eliminating the practice. This proved to be a very effective way of curbing excess eating.

While still not doing my own hunting and gathering, at least eating at home requires some level of effort beyond just ordering and paying. Of course, the food business has made all sorts of easy to prepare options for us at home too. This is what is known as "processing" of the food, and it's been brought to my attention that this is bad. So we have the FDA labels on the food that are supposed to tell us whether or not the food is "good, "bad" or somewhere in between. Yet some food does not have a label at all. When I was calorie logging over on the throughth3wall challenge at buckeyeoutdoors.com, the nutrition coach pointed out that these were the foods we should eat. Her words went something like "forget about reading the labels. If it has an FDA label, don't eat it."

Now I'm not here to pile my three cents worth on to the eat only natural, whole foods bandwagon. I'm a practical person, I think. Practical = Lazy. More (or less, depending on your viewpoint) than that though, I'm not an extremist. I can agree with, and pursue a concept without getting fanatical or evangelical about it. And this has been the recent direction of my approach to eating. Which brings us to the oversized packages of meat. Eating more protein, and fresh meat in particular, is something I've been focusing on, and I believe it's helped my athletic performance. Fresh meat does not have an FDA label, right? The problem is, why do I need to buy eight chicken thighs, or three steaks, or four hamburgers? They're making more work for me. Now I have to also buy some of my own packaging, split the stuff all up, freeze some of it, remember to cook the rest before it goes bad, remember to defrost the other portions when I want to eat them (which increases the likelihood of a hungry solobreak saying "Fuck that, three bowls of Nature's Bosom Blueberry Tree Bark with Hemp and Ground Squirrel Shit will have to do for dinner tonight), and then clean and sterilize the entire kitchen counter/sink area because it just had uncooked meat all over it. I just want to eat, not work out again. To be continued, but in another direction... Thanks for reading.