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Written on 2021/03/18 08:73 (metric, UTC-4) for Consciousness Prints Blog

When I was a kid I often wondered why, if we were going to have it anyways, my family couldn't just eat our dessert to start off the meal. Why not have the best part first? 

"It will spoil your supper" or "you'll enjoy the stuff you like more if you eat the stuff you don't like first" were the common responses or lines of reasoning that I was taught in response to my questions around this topic.

So pretty much most of my life I've followed this mindset: eat the healthy stuff first, then enjoy dessert after. And I have been methodical about it, at times starting meals with the least enjoyable food item, eating it all first, moving onto the next one, and so on until I finally made it to the best one. ​

Well tonight I decided to test this theory, I went about my supper meal in a way that would've delighted my five-year-old self if he could look into the future and see this day.

I was fortunate to have some cash available so yesterday I splurged in the most economical/best sugar-for-my-buck way possible by going to Walmart. Here is the stash I came home with:

I started preparing my fried rice for my supper but while I was doing that I decided, screw the rules, the social norms, the meal wisdom that had been passed along to me, I'm going to eat dessert first and I'm going all in.

So I knocked the sugared fruit slice gum drop container in half, I munched on a couple handfuls out of each chip bag, I did the solid-form equivalent of chugging the fizzy sour pops, I took satisfying delightful bites out of the two chocolate bars, I ate a generous amount of the sour berries, and I finished it off with a few chocolate-covered peanut butter cookies. Pure bliss. 

If you have it on hand, if your body is telling you you want it why wait? Why do you have to delay gratification? It didn't make it any less satisfying, probably more because I was enjoying it, I was actually hungry when I was eating the things that had the best taste. 

I guess the rationale is that if you go all in on the sugar and salt filled stuff that has little health value, you won't eat enough of the stuff that has actual nutrients in it. 

But after pounding back all that sugar, salt, and artificial flavoring, my first few bites of the wholesome, nutritious rice with broccoli, green peppers, carrots, lettuce, and an egg topped with soy sauce was better than I had ever had of this dish before. It felt great to eat something healthy: