I have gained an intense appreciation for fresh vegetables. It’s not that Scotland is completely void of vegetables. In fact, sometimes I feel incredibly small when considering the vastness of the fields of brussels sprouts and cabbages that surround me. It’s just that their availability is severely lacking. I distinctly remember staggering out of King’s Cross Station when visiting a friend in London, begging to find a fresh salad. My body was craving vegetables of any kind.
Vegetables aside, my time abroad thus far has heightened my precarious relationship with food.
Like many girls in the early 20s, I have struggled with the role of food as both a comfort and a bane. For me, the dreaded “freshman fifteen” was very much real, not something my thin friends joked about as they drunkenly grabbed another slice of T. Anthony’s. I also grabbed a slice, but my metabolism just gave a sort of chuckle at my idiocy. At the end of the year, I was not happy with how I felt or looked.
Since freshman year, I’ve learned to moderate myself. Yes, there are times when I go overboard. I live in Student Village while on campus and Chipotle is right down the street. It sometimes just happens. But, for the most part, I’ve learned to genuinely enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables.
I also sometimes find myself going overboard in the opposite direction. After rushing from a run, to class, then to the newspaper last semester, I would stop for a brief moment to remember that I hadn’t eaten anything that day. The worst part is that sometimes I would congratulate myself for having made it through the day without thinking about my next meal. After all, I’ve just burned so many stored calories during the day.
And so, while coming to Scotland, with an entirely new dining system, new food and a radically different schedule, my relationship with food, however shaky it may be, has changed. The change has become even more highlighted when traveling for spring break.
French and Italian culinary traditions hold an incredibly special place in my heart. My grandmother and I will experiment with perfecting crème brûlée or concocting gnocchi. However delicious the food may be, carbohydrates, butter and sugar reign supreme in both nationalities. In short, for someone making a very earnest effort to eat well, I had to mentally prepare myself.
The solution came with my running shoes and an open mind. Having my running shoes dangling from my traveling pack, literally kicking me in the butt, reminded me that exercise is always an option. Running to familiarize myself with the cities I visited was an incredible way to see new neighborhoods. At this point, running is merely a habit, so this was not the challenging part of the trip.
The open mind did not come that easily. To stare down the prospect of eating multiple plates of pasta, or any sort of carbohydrates for that matter day after day was a bit daunting. Then I sort of reached an epiphany in the middle of my first bowl of tagliatelle. “You’re in freaking Italy,” I thought, as I swirled my fork through piles of shaved parmesan. “If you hold yourself back, you will regret it.”
With that thought firmly lodged in my mind, I relinquished my tightly clawed grasp on eating well. If I wanted gelato, I was going to have gelato. To deny myself the joy of eating gelato in a piazza with friends in Florence is not only a lame choice, but also a missed bonding opportunity.
Coming to this realization also helped me see that my obsession with what I eat is sometimes overboard. Mindfulness and balance is incredibly necessary, but obsession is definitely not. Sometimes I need to just suck it up and eat the pasta. No, don’t just eat it. Enjoy it.
