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What should I have to eat?  This is a question that billions of people ask themselves every day across the globe.  The question is, what tributes goes through the person’s head when making this decision? In other words, what ultimately makes people decide on what to eat?  Granted, this question is more recent than one might think.  Not too long ago, or in some locations around the world today, people did not have much of an option, so the question was rather redundant.  Today however, most people in the Western world have a choice in what they are going to eat.  Some people factor tributes such as taste, nutrition, availability, or cost when deciding on what to eat.  Personally I am not that picky of an eater as I once was.  It does not matter to me how many calories are in a salad or an energy drink, frankly I do not even know what a calorie really is.  I base the question of “what should I have to eat?” on two ideas. The first is what my schedule is like, do I have any races or games or training that requires more food than normal? The second is what I have a taste for, something spicy, and something filling or simply cereal?  Essentially, if I decide on what to eat based off of what I have planned and what I feel like eating.

Ever since I was little, my family never put any nutrition talk into my head; I never heard them talking about taking in so many calories or eating a specific food or anything like that.  Don’t get me wrong, they wanted me to eat healthy and I was like any little kid where I could not have candy or coke or other unhealthy treats, which is not what I am talking about.  As a kid I grew up on a farm, where my father would work all day and my mother was a personal trainer at the local gym.  My brother and I helped my father as best we could for our age on the farm and would play in every sport available to us in rural Missouri. We were, and still are, a very active family, so my parents would not discuss calorie intake or fats, they would simply say that I did not need to eat a cheeseburger at the moment or have a coke, that it would not be good for me.  I usually left it at that.  Due to this, I could not really describe what a calorie is, I just know it has something to do with food and if there is too many, it could be unhealthy depending on your lifestyle. 

Another reason why I am not picky about the food I consume is because of my lifestyle.  When I was growing up on the farm, I was very picky.  My favorite food, which at times still is today, was a grilled cheese sandwich with french-fries and a coke from The Roundhouse (a local restaurant).  I have had that same meal from Seattle, to Orlando, to Amsterdam and beyond.  The best one is no doubt at The Roundhouse back home.  This was how picky I was, it was all I could eat, and it was safe.  Once my father joined the State Department, we were heading on a plane to Krakow, Poland in less than a year.  Now I have been accept into the TCK world, a Third Culture Kid, which is basically a kid who has spent the majority of their life outside of their home country; that they do not really mix 100% in the country where they live because of being a foreign nor in their home county because they have been gone for so long.  Naturally, with these adventures outside of the U.S. it is not surprising that most other countries do not have grilled cheese.  We ordered it onetime overseas and they brought back cheese that was grilled.  So I had to branch out a bit, trying foods that I did not know what was inside of it or what it was called, it was either all that was available or it sounded good from the waiter’s description in broken British English. Searching new foods this way, people do not inform you about the calorie intake or other health facts, if they wanted to it would be an interesting conversation to see how they would converse.  Since we spent most of our time in countries that did not speak English, we spent a lot of time with each other, which we still did not ever talk about nutrients in foods. It was not until recently, when we moved back to the U.S. where I have started to hear my parents and family discuss about eating properly in the form of calories. 

            Typically during the school year and at certain times during the summer I am very physically active due to sports, work or AFROTC.  This is what I normally base my food intake off of.  I am the sort of person where ingesting certain kinds of food at certain times before large physical events would certainly mess with my performance the day of the event.  For example, when I was in high school I was on a Dutch rugby team in Leiden.  We would typically have games fairly early in the morning, or we would have to be there early for a mini practice before the game.  I learned that certain foods either the night before or the morning of would upset my stomach and have to constantly search for a restroom.  This also applied for cross country, which is why I first ask myself if I have anything that day or the day after where I would have to be unavailable for most of the day, at a game or race. If I do not have anything nearby, my choice falls on what I feel like having, what tastes good at the time?

            What I feel like consuming is my next question when deciding what to eat.  Upon walking into the dining halls or ordering from a menu, I determine what type of food I would like to have. Usually I like to eat food that is filling such as burgers, lasagna, steak, food that you can sink your teeth into, as long as it is not too dry.  If I decide to have something like Asian, where there is a lot of rice and smaller food to eat, there is usually a second meal of some kind not too far in the future.  This decision usually involves the texture and taste of the food as well.  Due to various reasons, spicy and foods of the like are typically avoided in favor of other flavorful foods.  Characteristics like texture and taste are leading causes into what I decide on eating.

            It is true that one factor that emerges every now and then when deciding on what to eat is nutrition. I still maintain a healthy lifestyle, so I am not too concerned with what I eat.  However, instead of looking calories or fat in a food or simply how fattening a food will be, I look at my diet as a whole.  If I notice I have been eating a lot of unhealthy food recently, such as pizza, burgers and coke, I will eat more healthy foods.  This is the extent to which nutrition comes into my diet.

            Food is major component into ones’ life and the decision on what to eat can drastically change a person’s life if they continually make the wrong decisions.  However, it is no secret that with a balanced diet and regular exercise, your chances of falling ill to food related diseases or sicknesses falls drastically.  Due to my past and my healthy lifestyle, my decision on what to eat is fairly simple; do I have anything physical planned in the near future? And what do I feel like having?