Don't read the ingredients

Well, folks, it's been more than one week....and I've only had one coke. Cut me some slack, I was at the state fair with 5 5th-graders. Don't get me wrong, I haven't cut out chocolate, but I've cut back. After the first couple of days, it was a lot better. I have successfully walked past the soda and junk food aisle about 4 times without yielding. *standing ovation*

The fair...I volunteered to help out with Mister's class trip and really enjoyed it. I got some good kids in my group and we covered almost every exhibit. They weren't allowed on the rides, for which I was thankful. I had promised Tiny that I would bring her back some cotton candy. But, no matter where I looked,.....NO COTTON CANDY. What kind of fair doesn't have cotton candy. Weird. Knowledge I gained from this trip, pigs are the stinkiest animals there are...even when they're clean.

H and I have been watching the show "No Reservations" on the Travel Channel lately. The host of the show travels to different parts of the world and tries as many of the local cuisines as possible, no matter how bizarre. I've seen him try a drink processed with human spit (and I know someone who's actually done the same thing...he wasn't impressed). In South America, we went to a large meat roast in a cattle community and had his fill of rare steaks. He then made the mistake of visiting the ranch after eating and watched a bull be castrated. The meat in his stomach didn't sit so well afterwards. I eat meat, not a lot, but I do. I can appreciate that an animal's life was taken for me to have that meat. I have a simple understanding of how they are killed, processed, and prepared. But my bottom line is...I don't want to be intricately educated in how what I am eating was once living, and the process that has brought it to me lifeless and ready to consume. I'm a bit weird in the fact that I have a problem eating some meats and not others. Chicken, I usually pass when it still looks like the body part it came from (wings, legs, etc). But if it's chopped up in pieces or compressed into a patty, I'm fine. Hooves, snouts, toes...there's no way. Even if they are pickled, I will not try them. However, when they are ground up and combined into an unrecognizable food item, such as chorizo or bologna, I can eat them just fine, as long as I don't think about it too much or look at the ingredients. Like I said, I'm weird. Hope none of this offended anyone, but it's my life, my blog, and my palette. Thanks for reading though.