Anything You Eat Once A Year...

That Nice Boy I Married and I are going to the county fair this afternoon. As you are no doubt aware, county fairs are Festivals Of Bad Food: Funnel cakes, elephant ears, deep fried Snickers bars, soft-serve ice cream, caramel corn, cotton candy, soda, lemonade and "shake-em-ups" by the tanker-full. Even many of the things that started out with some nutritional value, like pork tenderloin, get dipped in batter, fried in questionable oils, and slapped on a big white-flour bun.

And many, many people look forward to this stuff all year long. All the articles in the local paper regarding our county fair, and those in the nearby counties, mention how excited people are about the fair food, what a treat it is, how it's a tradition, and everybody just loves it. Clearly they have not interviewed me, but then we long ago established that I am way, way out of step with American society when it comes to food.

All of this has put me in mind of something I've said for years: "Nothing you eat once a year is likely to be what kills you, unless it's cyanide." And this is true. But I'm seeing another side of this, or maybe even two other sides, and thought I'd share those thoughts with you.

First of all, for those of us with a history of serious carbohydrate addiction, a "just this once" treat can easily become the stumbling block that leads to months of carb creep, ending up with a dozen or two dozen or three dozen or more pounds that need to be re-lost, not to mention a re-assertion of all our old health problems. If you're considering such a treat, you need to be ruthlessly honest about yourself and your ability to have a "just this once" treat, at the risk of summoning up all of your old addiction demons. Few people would recommend that a recovering alcoholic should have a drink "just this once," because it was a special occasion, and those that did would be viewed as a menace.

This possibility of the reassertion of addiction leads to my second worry: The acceptance of the idea of "It's just once a year" holds the potential power to open the floodgates. Is it just a funnel cake you'll eat "just once a year" at the fair? Or will it be a funnel cake, a corn dog, some french fries, and some frozen custard, all consumed in the name of "our day at the fair?"

The idea of a whole day of junk food is bad enough, but it summons up an even greater threat, that of all the "just once a year" junk food opportunities the calendar holds. What will you have once a year on Labor Day? Halloween? Thanksgiving? At every Christmas party? Add in birthday parties, anniversaries, religious occasions like bar mitzvahs and first Holy Communions,not to mention weddings, bridal showers and baby showers, and it's hard to come up with a month of the year that doesn't contain a special occasion. That's lovely, I like a celebration as well as the next girl. But if you take every "only comes once a year" excuse to eat carb-y garbage, you're fooling yourself.

All of this being said, I will have one Indulgence at the county fair: An ear of roasted sweet corn. The local Lions Club sells 'em as a fund raiser, and it's the best sweet corn I've had since I was a kid. It'll "cost" me 17 grams of carb with 2.5 grams of fiber, for a carb hit of 14.5 grams. I should be able to burn that off walking around in the heat.

Still, be wary, be very wary, of the "it's only once a year" rationalization.