I’m fat. Much more so than I want to be. And I’ll tell you why: tasty food. I just don’t know when to quit. In fact, tasty food and how I relate to it is the very reason I don’t drink. Based on how I eat, I know for a fact that I would overdo it if I drank, that I would very likely be an alcoholic from the first sip. When I take a bite of that pizza, when I eat half a bag of potato chips, when I eat that entire slab of chocolate, the release of feel-good chemicals into my brain is like a drug. No, it is a drug, for all intents and purposes. So it’s easy to see why tasty food and a lack of self control have led me to be a hundred pounds overweight.

Many times I have threatened to eat better, to eat right, to eat food that was good for me. But the biggest problem with that is that the state of health food is appalling. “Oh, look at this beautiful, healthy salad! It’s got this and that, and some of this…” But it looks like weeds. “But it tastes great!” No, it tastes like weeds. “How about this stuff? It’s called quinoa, and it’s great for you.” It tastes like permanent marker smells. No thanks.

At least I’m not a carnivore cramming my veins with the added cholesterol from all the meats. I’m a vegetarian, mostly because I grew up that way and I like vegemeat better than real meat. But at the same time, it’s nearly impossible to find healthy vegemeat. That crap is just as processed as all the junk foods nutritionists hate so much. To add to the difficulty, I have a soy allergy, which severely restricts my ability to find acceptable sources of protein.

I blame the Japanese for inventing tofu and the Western world for co-opting soy protein for use in freaking everything. Seriously, go to the store and look at the ingredients on every loaf of bread that wasn’t baked fresh in the house bakery or a local one. I will bet you money that 90% of them have either soy flour, soybean oil, or both. So far, I’ve found that Dave’s Killer Bread is safe for me, as well as one brand that I’ve only found at Safeway. Incidentally, I’m find with products containing soy lecithin, as well as Bragg’s Liquid Aminos, which is basically soy sauce. I’m also allergic to peas and lentils, both of which are considered healthy. I do like peas, but I’ve never liked lentils, so that one’s fine with me.

Speaking of bread in the dichotomy of tasty food versus inedible food, I can’t stand most whole wheat bread. It often tastes like dirt or cardboard, and it’s drier than Death Valley, especially when toasted. I do have a bread machine, and I’ve used it a few times to make delicious whole wheat bread. But it always goes bad before I can finish it. Turns out, homemade bread has no preservatives. Which is awesome. But I want to be able to eat my bread, you know?

So this all brings me to the key question: why does good food taste like crap and crap food taste like it was plucked from the Tree of Life? The whole effort of cooking is a turn-off for me, but less so than the sheer dearth of health foods that actually taste good. Every “interesting” salad I see looks like it’s full of weeds. Every healthy breakfast I see has more than one grain and tastes like a silo unless I put in a whole squeeze bear of honey. No, vegans, your “cheese” does not taste “like the real thing.” Don’t lie to me. Same goes for your “ice cream” and your “cheesecake” and your other substitute foods. Is it too much to ask for health food that doesn’t taste fake, weird, or just plain awful? I’m open to recommendations.