You know how it is. You’re sitting there at your keyboard, and you get the very
strong urge for something - anything - to munch on. Other than your pencil.
And usually, because the words are flowing, and you don’t want to break the
spell - or the words are trickling out at a snail’s pace and you don’t want to
slow them down any farther - you’ll snag the first edible food item in easy
reach. Say a candy bar, a bag of chips, some carrot sticks the kids have been
carrying around in their lunch boxes and rejecting for a week.
But the truth is, if you chose just a little more carefully, both your stomach
and your mind, and okay, your soul - might be more satisfied.
All of these ideas take only a few seconds to prepare or grab.
Feeling a little stressed out? Try a glass of half grapefruit, half cranberry
juice. Grapefruit relaxes and stimulates, cranberry helps prevent a host of
infections by actually changing your body’s acidity levels.
Need energy fast? It’s probably a protein crash. But before you reach for one
of those heavy-on-the-sugar protein bars, try plain yogurt or cottage cheese
with a tablespoon of sweet apple butter. You get the protein and the sweet,
with less calories and less sugar. The pectin in the apple butter is good for
your bones, too.
Feeling under the weather? Time for some vitamin C and the youth enhancing
enzymes found only in - blueberries and blackberries. They’re so small and easy
to eat, you might almost fool yourself into thinking they’re m and m’s.
And if a sweet tooth is really biting you, okay, give in. Try peanuts,
chocolate chips, dried banana slices and dried cranberries or raisins. Go
light as you can on the chocolate, and it’s a preservative-free, fruit-rich way
to deal with those sugar cravings.
Sick of over-processed peanut butter as a snack? Try chunky almond butter, and
dip celery sticks, or hey, even those gnarly left over carrots, in the almond
goodness. Warning, you will have to stir it up - the natural almond oils settle
to the bottom of the carton.
Now what about that black bean soup?
Open a can of tomato soup. Open a can of black beans. Open a can of corn. Toss
the contents of each can into a pot for stove top cooking or a microwave safe
container and hit two minutes on the timer.
Open a jar of your favorite salsa - or if you’re really feeling wild, chop up
your own tomatoes, onions, garlic, cilantro, and add a pinch of red pepper. You
can always mix this up once and refrigerate or freeze it for other times.
Pour soup in a bowl. Plop a little salsa on top. Inhale and consume. It
couldn’t be easier, or more filled with protein, vitamins and fiber. You can
toss in a few tortilla chips...slice up a lime or an avocado on the side.
This soup isn’t only simple, it really is comfort food. I guarantee that if you
finish a bowl, you’ll feel almost as content as if you’d just aced a major
publishing deal, or heard your life story made the NY Time Best Seller List.
Well maybe not quite that content. But close.
Genie Davis is a produced screen and television writer. Her work spans
a variety of feature film genres from supernatural thriller to romantic drama,
family, teen, mystery, and comedy, including the feature film Losing
Hope. She's written on staff for ABC Daytime's Port Charles, TLC's
A Personal Story, and for HGTV, PBS, and Discovery. Her novel The
Model Man, romantic suspense, was published by Kensington
in 2006; Five O'Clock Shadow is just hitting the stores in February '07.
Her first novel, the noir Dreamtown, was published by a
small press in 2001. She also writes erotic romance under the name Nikki
Alton her novella Rodeo Man, August 2006, is a part of
Aphrodisia's The Cowboy anthology.
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