Matthew Strader, Food Box Challenge Participant

Day 3, Lesson 3

Anything, in repetition, sucks.

How does the saying go? All things in moderation...I think?

(Sorry, my brain isn't working)

I guess it's supposed to describe a healthy way of looking at life.

Don't live in excess. Live within your means. Yadda, yadda...

But now that I don't have a choice, I'm beginning to realize that the way most of us live, has made the saying itself a violation of its own intention.

You can't live in moderation if you don't have anything to moderate.

You must begin to live in excess in order for that saying to become meaningful...so if you must be instructed to moderate, you have already failed.

And my education continues...

It makes me think, what if you have to live with all things in repetition?

(I think if I overheard someone saying 'all things in moderation' especially in the grocery store, I'd want to kick them in the back)

I've been hearing a lot of requests to share recipes.

Do you know how many ways there are to mask peanut butter? To incorporate it into your diet? To adapt a favourite recipe so you can include the source of protein and sugar?

None!

Everything tastes like *&!@!# peanut butter.

It's my candy, my snack, my treat....whatever isn't a part of the 10 meals I'm trying to plan for myself during this week (That's plain pasta with tomato sauce for six different meals). I figured a jar of peanut butter was going to get me through.

On routine weeks, I don't buy the stuff. I'm not a big fan.

But this week, my guilty pleasure (they called it a specialty item) was peanut butter and apples.

I have one apple left, and if I don't see peanut butter for the rest of my life, I think I'm going to be ok.

(Excuse me, I'm gonna eat a spoonful. It's all I have.)

Anne (thank you for doing so) added to our blog, and her entry almost made me cry. It was incredibly on point for what I wanted to write about today. Exercises like this always make me think about the level of privilege we - as semi well off members of a civilized nation - enjoy and take for granted. Variety, it turns out, is lesson number three for me.

Living without it is incredibly difficult.

I'm on day three, Anne, and all I am doing is wanting to complain that my only snack is peanut butter. What a load of BS.

I'd like to take you grocery shopping, but I don't have the money to, I'm scraping by myself as my wife and I have enjoyed the birth of our first child and live on one income. But my gosh, I realize now the privilege I do enjoy just to be able to switch it up every now and then.

I will not complain again about not being able to afford something I can't.

I will get involved in Caledon Community Services' drive to begin a food bank so that I never forget that I shouldn't get to the point where I need to teach myself to moderate.

I understand the moral of that little saying now.

We moderate, so we can share.

And maybe if I learn to share more, you won't have to live in repetition...