Let the "Games" begin

Sunday 10:00 pm

Day one of SNAPfast was pretty mild.  I was sort of excited to get started and was feeling positive about the whole project.  When I got up this morning for church, I found I wasn’t really hungry, which is not an unusual thing for me.  I’ve never been a big morning eater, so I opted to not have anything before church.  I do generally have a cup or two of coffee in the morning, but I did not this morning since I had not bought any with my 28 bucks.   I did avail myself to a cup after church during coffee hour, then I scooted out.  I had a rehearsal from 11 to 2 and I knew there would be lots of snacks there.  To stick to my fast I decided to pack a bologna sandwich and take it with me.  I felt a little sheepish, like I was packing my lunch for school.  I did get a few comments about why I brought a sandwich with me, and when I explained to a few patient souls, they smiled and seemed interested.  I did find that I wanted to dive into the chips and pretzels they had laid out, but didn’t.   Later on in the afternoon at home I did feel hungry.  Being the lazy person I am, I did the quickest thing and slapped together another bologna sandwich.

By 7:00 pm I was hungry again and realized that two bologna sandwiches were all I had really eaten for the day, so I set out to make dinner.   Of the things I had purchased I was most interested in pasta, so I boiled some water, threw in spaghetti, and heated up store-brand tomato/basil sauce.  Realizing that I had probably not consumed a single vitamin for the day, I opened a small can of mixed vegetables.  They were not very appetizing, but I really felt I should have something, so I heated them up and seasoned them with butter and salt.   When finished, the meal was a substantial heap on my plate.  I ate the whole thing and generally enjoyed it.  I’ve never met a carbohydrate I didn’t like.  Cleaning up, I decided to take a closer look at the nutritive value of the vegetables, expecting to congratulate myself for a balanced meal.  I was chagrined when I looked at the can’s label.   The 8.25 oz can held “about” two servings.  Even though it contained carrots, peas, corn potatoes, corn, green beans, celery and limas, it could only claim to have 80% of my vitamin A requirement, followed by a mere 12% of Vitamin C. That’s it.  I thought vegetables were supposed to be good for you and were chock full of all sorts of healthy things.  I suppose I’ll need to read labels more closely.  What I did consume in this one small can was 24% of my daily sodium requirement.   I did not go on to calculate the amount of sodium in the pasta, the sauce, the two slices of bologna and the four slices of bread, but I have no doubt I was over the recommended limit by a mile.

So my first day was a mixed bag.  I did not really feel deprived or bothered by hunger, but the nutrition from what I ate was probably relatively poor.  If I am going to eat well I am going to have to put more effort into reading labels.  Tomorrow I’ll have something fresh.