My sister, the one who is next younger than me and lives in Canada, and the one who has a write up ready for the guest blog but won’t send it, made two statements about me. 

I question the veracity of both.

So, I took it upon myself, as the end user of such statements, to check them out.

To begin with, she used a word that I had heard for the first time only three months ago.

Her first statement claimed that I was a foodie.

I looked that word up.  It began circulating in 1980, which leaves it a fairly young word.

I tend to be careful not to toss young words around carelessly myself.

One definition I found said a foodie is a person having an avid interest in the latest food fads.

Fads?  Me?  Involved in fads?  She meant flab, more than likely.

Another definition said a foodie is someone who seeks out the best eating experiences whenever and wherever they can.

Does she have a grudge against me?  This makes me out to be some sort of indiscreet guy who falls headlong for any new food fad, regardless of the flab, flap, or flak.

I’m a McDonalds guy. 

Okay, I’ll go one worse. 

I’m a McDonalds chicken nugget guy. 

I don’t see all the uppity folks who eat the latest and greatest joining me in the line at the counter there. 

I think the cold weather where she came from did something to her thinking process.

The next statement she made implied that I was picky in my eating.

To put it mildly, I was stunned. 

But then it dawned on me that she was using picky in place of a different word, and therefore I was exonerated.

At first I thought she was referring to the condition of some folks who, when a new dish is placed before them, won’t try it.  You can put whatever reason you want to in there as to why they won’t, and probably any of them would be a correct definition of a picky eater.

But I don’t struggle with that.  I’m game to give stuff a try.  Providing, of course, that it falls within reason.

So, I was absolved of that charge. 

I’m quite sure she was referring to a strict discipline I hold myself to and inappropriately called it picky.

My discipline is stated thus—

I read a while back that when our body lacks in any specific food group or ingredient, we become hungry for something of that nature. 

It makes total sense to me, and I’ve since tried to be obedient to that.

If, say, I sit down to a meal that has pizza, thin and crispy crust with pork sausage, which hasn’t been in a box and still emanates a visceral, flavorful smell at that, and a lettuce salad, my body sits up and takes notice. 

And, beings as my makeup is unique, just like my wife’s, my sister’s, and yours, it falls that my body gets hungry for pizza and not so much for lettuce a high percentage of the time. 

It’s rather humbling, to stick to this discipline, but if you want a healthy happy life, some sacrifice is always necessary, as they say. 

At the expense of my wife being cross with me, I have to forego the lettuce; but that works too.  Because almost always, on those kinds of days, my wife’s body is calling for lettuce and not so much pizza, so it generally works out. 

And the same discipline goes for chocolate sauce, in case you wondered. 

Anyway, I think I have proven my point; I’m neither a foodie nor picky.