Fast Food Abberation

It’s not easy for me to reminisce about the presence of fast food during my childhood, partially because it didn’t play a large role. I come from a family of 8 kids and a single mother, so more often than not our meals were made with generic ingredients and/or came frozen or in a box. At the time, I resented my mom for settling on such a low quality of food to feed all of us, but I was just too young to understand how the enormity of my family made it a little more difficult for a single mother to manage to feed that many mouths on such a fixed income. When we would all venture out to a park or an event that kept us from a kitchen, our meals would be sandwiches and snacks made that morning. The majority of the time, I had a very poor attitude with my brown bagged lunches. I remember having to watch all the other kids run off to buy food when we would go on field trips, and would be ashamed to have to bring my own food. I saw this as a stamp of my below average socioeconomic level. I felt like the poor kid. Looking back, I realized that I wasn’t the only kid who had that sack lunch, but that I shared my below average-ness with so many others.



This pattern extended through my childhood into my teenage years and came to a shattering halt when I was grown and had my own job. I dove headfirst into fast food consumption. For the better part of a year, I lived off of Burger King. This was primarily due to the fact that it was the only food place within walking distance of my apartment, but also because I wanted to treat myself for going years and years eating such generic and boring dinners. I also hated washing dishes more than anything in the world, because as one can imagine, constant in kitchen cooking meant a steady flow of dirty dishes and thus a daily chore that I grew such disdain for. When I lived on my own I ate it all. Jack in the Box, McDonalds, there was no fast food place that was beyond or below my level. I currently exercise the fast food as a “treat” method. For example: I finish my homework, I get Taco Bell. There is little on this planet that I wouldn’t do for a bit of Taco Bell. I no longer live around the corner from fast food, and that fact alone has greatly decreased my intake of it. But I’ve also learned the nutritional value, or lack thereof, of all kinds of foods and I’ve simply made a conscience decision to steer clear of the junk when I can. It helps that I live in a house where getting fresh food and well cooked meals is all but a problem. Rarely am I left to fend for myself, so I don’t go reaching for fast food like I used to.