This goal has been easy to fill lately for three reasons:
1) Apples. All my life I thought I hated apples. Red Delicious only fulfill half their promise, after all. About a 18 months ago, I started to try to eat more healthfully by buying little packages of precut apple slices for lunch. My friend thought this was ridiculous, so she introduced me to the Gala Apple. She also showed me how to core and wedge apples easily with a knife. Now I feel silly. I’ve missed out on decades of apples just because I didn’t know how to wedge them properly. My recent favorite breakfast has been a microwaved Gala Apple, cored and dressed with a little sugar and ginger. So satisfying.
2) Apple pears, also known as Asian pears. I recently moved to a house with a very mature Asian pear tree. I also figured out that this tree has at least two, perhaps three, varieties of Asian pears on its branches (gotta love the miracle of horticulture). One is a large baseball-sized Asian pear with a juicy sweet taste reminiscent of wine or bubble gum. The other is a tennis-ball sized Asian pear that is very green, with a crisp, light taste, which is perfect for side dishes. I could just live in that tree. We’re down to our last bag which is sad. But I can’t stretch out the Asian pears because the owner of the house doesn’t believe that fruit stays good in the fridge for months, even though apples and apple pears do. It’s a hard job, but someone’s got to eat through all those pears….
3) An app for an Apple product. I recently got an iPhone, and a very popular app is the weight loss app Lose It! It’s much simpler than using pad and paper, and just seeing the real-time calorie count of the day makes it that much easier to choose the apple over the donut.
Eating fruit is now actually second nature now, to the point where I dread going to someplace like Starbucks or Denny’s. Most days a baked apple or sliced up banana in milk for breakfast would really be more satisfying than any of the pastries in the case or pancakes on the menu. (And please don’t suggest oatmeal as an alternative, because I think that oatmeal is gross!)
