Snack, Day Twenty-Five

• 2 graham crackers with 1 tbsp Smart Balance peanut butter & raisins

Wow, what a simple treat! I felt like I was in kindergarten enjoying snack time again. I think it's so funny how as a young child, you consider natural foods or relatively healthy things like graham crackers to be such a treat, but once you get more self-conscious and aware of your peers, you start wanting candy, chocolate, chips, sugary drinks, and the other junk food your friends all eat.

A fresh peach in my lunch was once the nicest surprise I could imagine, but by high school, I was embarrassed to have a home-made sandwich or fruit and wanted to buy the gross over-processed nutritionally vacant fried junk the cafeteria sold instead. Thankfully I was really active and athletic, so the mozzarella sticks and chicken fingers did not catch up to me immediately, but when I got to college and no longer had the saving grace of my parents' nutritious dinners, I made bad choices at every meal.

I like that my friends now are more concerned with healthful eating and aren't as inclined to suggest we get Burger King, but it's still discouraging to go over to someone's apartment and find they only have regular soda and beer to drink. I'm glad to see an overall cultural change, though, as so-called "health foods," particularly those made with whole grains instead of bleached over-processed white flour and organic fresh fruit are more and more widely available around the city. This is a startling contrast with only 2 years ago (when I first tried dieting) and I couldn't find anything but whole milk in a 1-mile radius of my apartment.