Dear reader,
Do you guys even remember when I said I’d start cooking? That never actually happened. I perfected eggs at first, sure, but I never graduated to making anything as ambitious as a quiche.
In my defense, the war impeded much of my plans and motivation. Initially out of excitement, I saved many recipes and nearly 100 Instagram cooking reels. But I never found the time to take a breath, relax, and muster the patience to cook. We’re always on the run. “Raked bi raked,” as we like to call it.
Lately, though, I’ve noticed a pattern: I eat the exact same foods every week. The easy foods. The problem is that they’re also the foods you probably shouldn’t be eating on repeat.
Take canned tuna. I’ll easily have it more than three times a week: with mayo, soy sauce, or tossed into a salad with balsamic. Turns out, experts recommend limiting its consumption to no more than twice a week due to the mercury levels in it.
Then there’s my biggest weakness: ramen. My mom never let me eat it as a kid, and she had good reason not to. The older you get, the more you realize your mother was right. The sodium content in it is ridiculous, let alone the way it’s manufactured. But because of how much I love it, I’ve chosen to simply look the other way every now and then.
The third one is beer. Drinking it daily is obviously bad for your liver. But apparently it can also act as a laxative too, which is not a fun fact I was expecting to learn. So if you’re watching World Cup matches from 9 p.m. until 3 a.m., while chugging beers, your digestive tract will certainly have an opinion.
Anyway, I’m not exactly qualified to tell anyone what they should or shouldn’t eat. With the amount of processed food I’ve consumed over the years, I could probably glow in the dark.
But if you’d like to expand your options so you aren't stuck repeating the same three foods and stressing about how bad they are for your body, I recommend you check out our What’s cooking? Recipes section brought to you by actual chefs.
Melissa Manouchakian
Distribution editor
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