Food is necessary for life, no one can argue that, but if you ask people what are some of the food memories they have they would probably tell you a story about grandmother’s cooking or a holiday tradition of some kind or even a favorite restaurant. I do not relate to food that way, of course that is not to say I do not have fond memories of grandmother’s house or some of the awesome meals my father cooks. I relate to food out of necessity. I relate to food as a tool, energy. I eat on average twice a day and of those two times only one is usually a full meal. Even though my eating is out of necessity it is most certainly not a well planned diet. It is more of a haphazard balancing act between my current activities, known future activities and how I feel at the moment.
My current activities recently involve tasks of a college student. While most people think of college as a party, the reality (at least for me) is late nights, early mornings and no energy so coffee is just the thing that solves my energy problems. A medium roast coffee bean brewed fresh with a pinch of sugar and I am on my way. Coffee only goes so far though and then comes the shakes which are easily fixed with a lunch of some sort. I say of some sort because yesterday I ate chicken salad, nothing else, just chicken salad. That is usually how it has been lately for a lunch, something quick and then I am onto other things. Dinner that night was a real meal, a classic, steak and potatoes with cheesy vegetables. That is an example of my current eating habits but it has not always been this disorganized.
For example, while in high school I ran cross country. Our team had a tradition that promoted camaraderie and winning. That tradition was spaghetti nights. We would all gather at the designated teammate’s house and enjoy friendships over big heaping plates of spaghetti. The reason we ate spaghetti and not pizza or burritos was the carbohydrates. These carbohydrates or more specifically complex carbohydrates are the building blocks of energy which was going to be necessary for the next day’s race. So big plates of complex “carbs” at spaghetti night was when I first started equating food as a tool for energy.
My time spent in the Army was where this mentality was completely solidified. More specifically this idea of food as a tool was ingrained while at basic training in Ft. Benning, Georgia. The non-stop pace of training at Ft. Benning required me (like I had a choice) to eat two square meals a day and an MRE. Breakfast and dinner were full plates of food served in the mess hall (cafeteria) and lunch was an MRE. A MRE or Meal, Ready to Eat is a “completely self-contained meal that provides all the nutrition a solider-on-the-go needs to sustain himself.” About 1200 calories is what the typical MRE provides and even though the food itself might not look good it is definitely needed to continue the fight. Candy might not be your first thought when looking for a food that provides energy but it can solve a problem. After being assigned to my unit after basic training the continuation of my soldier skills was an everyday part of the work schedule. One of those tasks was foot marches which were most of the time very painful and completely exhausting. Candy was the answer, after approximately mile 8 loaded down with about 60 pounds of gear I would hit a wall, along with everyone else, and the answer from a senior leader was hard candy. A hard candy like Jolly Ranchers or Jawbreakers or Red Hots (Cinnamon Imperials if they came from the MRE’s) gave you the electrolytes needed to keep going. The trick with the candy is once you start make sure you do not run out because you will crash so it was important to keep a good supply and time the use just right. I was told it was the sugars turning into electrolytes which provided short term energy. I thought that was plausible but also I though it could be the psychological joy associated with candy while I was doing something that really sucked. Either way it was a trick that worked so it was something I practiced and preached.
While deployed to Iraq we faced extreme heat, summer temperatures between 110 to 130 degrees, and staying hydrated was an issue that was solved with another trick taught by senior leaders. In Iraq we were given palettes of 1 liter water bottles for drinking and any other task that require clean potable water. We were also given boxes of Gatorade powder packets to help keep us hydrated with the essentials of sugars, electrolytes and minerals. That alone was not always enough because it did not provide enough salts to really help our bodies hold the water we drank so the medics acquired re hydrating salt packets for us. They are a mixture of salts and other things to help the body retain water and other nutrients easier and those packets were worth their weight in gold. What many of us would do is mix half a Gatorade packet and half a re hydrating salt packet into a full 1 liter bottle of water as a morning and afternoon rejuvenation. Like many things in the army this concoction tasted horrible, like cherry flavored sweat, but was the perfect solution to a very real problem of dehydration. These were tricks that were either taught by senior leaders with prior experience or learned through trial and error.
Due to the necessity of being physically fit in order to accomplish the mission I had to spend considerable amounts of time in the gym where, instead of being taught tips and tricks to getting the most out of food, it was my own prerogative to teach myself what was required. I learned the ins and outs of a healthy low fat-high protein diet, how to balance vitamins and supplements and to eat properly proportioned meals. All of this I learned through reading muscle building magazines and books or spending time on health and fitness websites or internet forums. I learned what it takes to really fight against my old habits of snacking and overeating. It was very challenging to not load up my breakfast, lunch and dinner plates with fried or greasy foods but the rewards were worth it. I was rewarded with a sense of achievement as well as a surplus of energy which allowed me to work even harder at the tasks I was trying to accomplish.
Like everybody else I have memories of the family getting together for holiday meals and I have memories of my father’s dinners but what really stands out in my mind when I’m asked about my food memories is the techniques I use food to accomplish my goals. Whether it is coffee to stay awake and alert, a high carbohydrate meal for pure energy or a low fat-high protein meal to really promote muscle growth. It seems very analytical to think this way and it is in a sense but it’s the way I have been trained either inadvertently or deliberately to think the role of food in my life.
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