Sunday Rerun: Good for the goose

 Like all health-conscious adults of a certain age (and I am certain of it!), I have had to stop and look at my dietary choices.  Gone are the days when a whole cheeseburger sub, an order of fries and a quart of beer made for a proper supper.

Of course, when I ate like that, I was 19 and weighed about 150 lbs, so go figure.

The good people at Comcast have a Lifestyle blog written by Audrey Morrison, and the other day the blog listed 14 "superfoods" that are supposed to stretch your budget and boost your health.  I scanned the list, and what do you know? It does not list Doritos, Ding-Dongs or Diet Sprite.  

But here's what's odd.  I actually LIKE a lot of the foods on the list!  To wit:

Beans - this musical fruit encompasses a large family of low-fat protein sources. I like kidney beans in a salad, and even though I love baked beans such as Bush's and even Campbell's, they load them up with enough sugary stuff as to make them not so good for me, so I just take the canned kidney beans, throw a little mustard and horseradish in there, and heat them up!  The website says beans have a lot of potassium, magnesium and iron.  It's a wonder I don't have magnets stuck to me.
Blueberries - During my Opie-like childhood, I used to pick berries of all sorts and gobble them right down. I'm confused about blueberries.  For one thing, they taste great, but they're still good for you because they have "antioxidants."  I thought oxygen was a good thing.  
Broccoli is described in the blog as "nature's perfect food," and it is, as long as it is covered in nature's perfect topping - cheddar cheese (not on the list, oddly.)
Green or black tea - I love tea more than coffee, but here's the deal if you prefer tea with your breakfast in a restaurant.  Coffee drinkers, sure, they wheel out a big 2-gal Tub O'Mocha Java for you, but if you want tea, they give you 1 (one) tea bag and a cup of hot tap water, and if you want another cup of tea, you get the MER* and a mighty sigh.  I'm thinking of coming out with a brand of orange tea called "Mighty Sigh," endorsed by John Boehner.
Oats contain B vitamins, fiber, protein, zinc, copper and potassium, the website says.  The great thing is that oatmeal is easy to nuke, and when you're finished with the box, you have a little drum with a picture of a Quaker on it.
Oranges confuse me too, because everyone know they have Vitamin C, but they are also loaded with "flavinoids."  "Oids" sounds funny, especially the ones from the "Hemorrh" family.
Pumpkin is full of good things but, frankly, are you going to buy a can of pumpkin in May, or order a pumpkin spice lattadoodle from Sbux in August? Pumpkin works from October through New Year's Eve and takes off the first nine months of the year.  Pretty sweet deal!
Soy, not so much. Love the sauce, though.
Spinach makes the list and that's good, but I wonder if the other greens, such as turnip greens, collard greens, mustard greens and kale are just as good, because they are much tastier and fresher tasting to me, and I'm the one who has to eat them.  You can have my spinach.
Tomatoes, long thought of as part of the lettuce-tomato-mayonnaise trio that serve as dressing on cold cut sandwiches, have a life of their own, and proudly walk around all full of "lycopene, a carotenoid and phytonutrient that’s also found in other red fruits like strawberries, watermelons and cherries," according to the blog, and lycopene may be helpful in lowering the risk of lung, stomach and prostate cancer.  All this, and you couldn't have marinara sauce or pizza without them.  Well done!
Turkey is good for more than just one dinner and 27 lunches in November. I prefer ground turkey or chicken (and they are all ground animals: they cannot fly) in burgers or tacos, and the fact that turkey is full of iron, vitamin B and zinc is beside the point.
Walnuts are good nuts to put in salads and other foods or just to munch on. And of course they bring to mind that certain "Dick Van Dyke" episode.
Wild salmon is loaded with vitamins and good nutrition, and when you have one on your plate, you're having dinner with a fish who was strong enough and amorous enough to fight his way upstream to spawn.  And now look.
Yogurt contains probiotics, live bacteria that aid in digestion.  If you're serious about your nutrition, avoid amateur biotics and stick with the pros.

So it turns out that I love most of these foods that are good for me.  I am officially the healthiest person in the room where I am writing this right now.**

*Maximum Eye Roll
** I'm all alone