Quality over Quantity in 2010

Most New Year's resolutions are related to food and drink, and to be honest, most are utter failures. As soon as their champagne hangovers begin to fade, people herd themselves into the gym, crowd the jogging trails, and fill their freezers with boxes of Healthy Choice or Smart Ones to repent for their earlier food sins. But by the end of January, most people have returned to their old routines, usually just in time for Super Bowl parties where diets are discarded in favor of fried chicken wings and endless pitchers of beer.

The trouble with most of these resolutions is that they're too specific, too restrictive, and only serve to make life less enjoyable. Stiff rules break, but flexible ones merely bend. My humble suggestion? Eschew quantity for quality. Instead of relegating foods to a Forbidden or Permitted list, simply limit your selections to include small portions of foods that actually taste good. 

 Missing the point completely

We could all take a lesson from the French, whose cuisine is devoid of Olestra fat substitutes, Splenda, or flavored rice cakes. All of these puffy vapid foods are endemic of the peculiarly American tendency to insist upon hollowing out the joy from what were once tasty treats, rendering them into bizarre-tasting and unsatisfying sources of bulk. It doesn't have to be this way.

From a tirade against light beer by Rebecca Kelley in the Daily Fork:

If you have a craving for a milkshake, you don't say "Ooh, I really want a milkshake, but I'll substitute water for the milk and frozen cottage cheese for the ice cream and blend that atrocity together so I can drink a few of them without feeling guilty-wilty about the extra calories."

Let this stick in your mind the way it has in mine. Skip desserts for awhile, eat some fruit instead, or find someone to share that piece of cake. But if your cravings begin to shout too loudly, don't turn to some crappy rendition of what you're actually craving. To Rebecca's well-phrased example, I'll raise a single pint (perhaps one of only two for the whole evening) of a well-crafted but highly caloric beer. To a restrained new year!