Snack Attack

There are some times when I don't really crave any one kind of food over another. I can happily munch on cereal all day and if it fills me up, that's great, and that's all I really care about. But there are other days, or even full weeks, when I absolutely have to have a certain food. Sometimes it's a salt craving, and I love to chow down on fries or chips, and I feel like I could lick the salt off of each one (perhaps it would be best during those cravings to invest in a salt-lick). But more often that not, I crave sweets over salts, and the one sweet I can't get enough of? Chocolate.

Especially a certain chocolate that contains nuget, peanuts, and carmel? You know what I'm talking about, right? Snickers! I have always been a Snickers fan. When I first went away to college (and had unresticted access to vending machines), I used to head down to my dorm lobby and buy a Snickers nearly every night for dessert -- must be why I gained that freshman fifteen (that, and all the booze). After that year, I cut back some, but it was hard because college campuses' main source of food distribution is through vending machines, and they exist all over college campuses across the country (and in other countries too, I'm sure). Vending machines are popular because the food is cheap and fast, and many college students need that while cramming for a test or preparing for an in-class essay.

Perhaps if I had chosen a career where I left the collegiate world, I could leave behind a love for the vending machine snacks, but alas, I chose to teach at the college level and thus I am strapped to the ever-tantalizing call of the Snickers (few others goodies interest me). This week was espeically bad. I had two of them. Not in a row -- I ate them on separate days -- but to eat two candy bars in one week is like fornicating with a street-walker in terms of sin. Yet, I have rationalized that it's not really a big deal.

A. I don't usually eat two candy cars in a week. In fact, I rarely eat candy bars. (I do, however, regularly consume other sweetened products like ice cream treats.) So, I figure an indulgence every once in awhile doesn't hurt anyone, and unless those bars were laced with cyanide, I'm sure they won't kill me -- they'll just give me a fat ass.

B. As I said before on a previous post, Snickers are essentially equivilent in sugar, protein, and fiber as a Power Bar; they are just marketed differently. The difference is that you eat a Power Bar and you feel as though you ate something healthy, and if you eat a Snickers, you feel as though you might have to battle Satan for your soul. (But, I've pretty much accepted the idea that hell will be my final destination, and if they have Snickers there, I think that will suit me just fine.) So, it's about perception.

Yes, if you eat five candy bars a day, that will be dificult to run off, but one? That's two hundred calories (or two miles -- I think of most calories in terms of how many miles I have to run to shed those calories) and that's not too bad. Of course, that means I have to run. Crap.