Oh, The (Mock) Horror!

Big headline:  restaurant meals don't meet federal guidelines for being healthy!

Well, i'm so glad they told me, i would never have known.  Really, it would never have occurred to me that the huge plates, platters, and bowls, often with fried foods or things that drip oil and fat, or lots of sauce, could possibly be unhealthy.

For real, people.  Don't most of us know, when we are going out for a meal, that we aren't always doing the best and most healthy thing we can do?

Yes, i'm weird.  My diet, except for my daily cup of coffee, is almost entirely raw and vegan.  Lots of fruits, vegetables, sprouted grains, nuts, berries, seeds.  What my dad calls rabbit food.  So when i go to a restaurant, i know i'm not going to be getting my usual stuff.  Oh, i'll get the salad with oil and vinegar on the side, with steamed or sauteed vegetables.  Sometimes the veggies come with butter.  Guess what, i shut up and eat it, even though i try to stay vegan.  There is no way, unless i am in a vegetarian restaurant or health food store with a small deli and dinner selection that i am going to get what i usually eat, and i deal with it.

The problem isn't that restaurant foods don't tend to be the healthiest.  After all, i don't know why you go to restaurants, but for me it's so i don't have to cook, and because the rest of the family wants something that i don't usually fix, or can't fix, or won't.  Getting the chef's specialty that you don't get anyplace else is a treat.

No, the problem is that it's often no longer a treat.  When going to a restaurant for a special meal isn't so special any more, that's when the unhealthy effects take a toll.

There are so many demands on our time, that the ease of eating out lures too many of our dollars out of our pockets, i believe.  (Well, not so much here, we only eat out when my dad treats us, once every 2 months, seldom enough to still be special.)

The ads are relentless, temping us to ease and convenience, and often very unhealthy choices.  It's up to us to be responsible and resist most of the time.

While it's nice the government wants us to know just how unhealthy it is, does it really make a difference if it's a treat?  Probably not.

The difficulty is it's not a treat any more for so many people.

Instead of being horrified to find out what we already knew, that a lot of restaurant meals aren't the best for us, how about being horrified if we find ourselves making excuses to go eat those meals more often than is healthy for the waist or the pocketbook.

Today is

Agonalia -- Ancient Roman Calendar (a sacrifice to the highest gods, one of the Roman's most ancient festivals)

American Red Cross Founder's Day

Anastenarides Feast -- Greece (feast to St. Constantine and St. Helen)

Battle of Las Piedras Day -- Uruguay

Circassian Day of Mourning -- Circassians

Day of Patriots and Military  -- Hungary

Día de la Afrocolombianidad -- Columbia (Afro-Colombian Day; commemorates Columbia's abolition of slavery on this date in 1851)

Dia De Las Glorias Navales -- Chile (Navy Day)

Discovery Day -- Cayman Islands

Festival for Vevodus -- Ancient Roman Calendar (god of the dead, swamps, and volcanic movements, and sometimes regarded as the king of the Di Manes)

Independence Day -- Montenegro

"I Need A Patch For That" Day -- sponsored by Wellcat Holidays

Lilies and Roses Day -- London, England (memorial of the death of Henry VI on this day in 1471; held at the Tower of London with representatives of Eton College and King's College, which he founded.)

National Anxiety Disorders Screening Day

National Memo Day -- an internet holiday with no known origin, just take a memo

National Strawberries and Cream Day

National Waitstaff Day

Passion Play Day -- the first Oberammergau, Germany, Passion Play was staged this date in 1634

Saint Helena Day -- St. Helena

Sovereign's Day Holiday -- Belize

St. Constantine's Day (Patron of Greece)

St. Eugene de Mazenod's Day (Patron of disfunctional families)

St. Helen's Day (Patron of Greece)

Victoria Day -- Canada

World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development -- UN


Birthdays Today:

Sarah Ramos, 1991
Ashlie Brillault, 1987
Lisa Edelstein, 1966
Mr. T, 1952
Peggy Cass, 1924
Raymond Burr, 1917
Dennis Day, 1917
Harold Robbins, 1916
Sister Maria Innocentia Hummel, 1909
Fats Waller, 1904
Armand Hammer, 1898
Alexander Pope, 1688


Today in History:

Syracuse, Italy is captured by the Muslim sultan of Sicily, 878
The island of Saint Helena is discovered by the Portuguese navigator João da Nova, 1502
The nobility elect John Sobieski King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, 1674
The Order of St. Alexander Nevsky is instituted in Russia by the empress Catherine I; it would later be discontinued and then reinstated by the Soviet government in 1942 as the Order of Alexander Nevsky, 1725
Mary Campbell is abducted from her home in Pennsylvania by Lenape during the French and Indian War, 1758
Slavery  is abolished in Colombia, South America, 1851
Russia declares an end to the Russian-Circassian War and many Circassians are forced into exile, 1864
French troops invade the Paris Commune and engage its residents in street fighting, 1871
The American Red Cross is established by Clara Barton, 1881
The Manchester Ship Canal in England is officially opened by Queen Victoria, 1894
The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) is founded in Paris, 1904
Charles Lindbergh touches down at Le Bourget Field in Paris, completing the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean, 1927
Bad weather forces Amelia Earhart to land in a pasture in Derry, Northern Ireland, and she thereby becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, 1932
Oskaloosa, Iowa, becomes the first municipality in the United States to fingerprint all of its citizens, 1934
A Soviet station becomes the first scientific research settlement to operate on the drift ice of the Arctic Ocean, 1937
The National War Memorial in Canada is unveiled by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in Ottawa, 1939
Physicist Louis Slotin is fatally irradiated in a criticality incident during an experiment with the Demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory, 1946
The opening of the Ninth Street Show, otherwise known as the 9th Street Art Exhibition – a gathering of a number of notable artists, and the stepping-out of the post war New York avant-garde, collectively know as the New York School, 1951
Michelangelo's Pietà in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome is damaged by a vandal, 1972
Democratic Republic of Yemen and North Yemen agree to a unity, merging into Republic of Yemen, 1990
The Ethiopian Civil War ends, 1991
Suharto, Indonesian president of 32 years, resigns, 1998
The clipper Cutty Sark is badly damaged by fire in London, England, 2007
JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, launches the solar-sail spacecraft IKAROS aboard an H-IIA rocket, 2010