Happy MORSELICIOUS MONDAY!
Let’s talk about Meatless Monday or how about
MODERATION MONDAY?!
“Don’t dig your grave with a knife or fork.” – English proverb
Doesn’t that pretty much sum it all up?
Moderation is key in most EVERYTHING, right?
If there’s one thing I learned during our latest
harrowing medical nightmare in Tahiti,
it was SURVIVAL–MAINTAIN health, no matter
what the cost. An oxymoron?
Tahiti is NOT known for healthy food, let alone vegetarian cuisine.
OK…sure, I could have munched on white bread,
tons of sugary/salty/overly processed snack foods and
lots of starchy fruits if I wanted to eat my regular “VEGGIE diet.”
But that defeats my entire mission and philosophy on eating
REAL-WHOLE-FOODS. 
Yes, I prefer a plant based diet, but
if choosing plant based JUNK over fresh fish or egg white scramble is my option,
I choose fish or egg white scramble with as many veggies as I can chew.
Namely, cabbage and carrots. That seemed to be the #1 “salad”
option in Tahiti.
Pure-Peanut Butter? HA! The closest I could find, and trust me,
we shopped everywhere we could walk, including various Mini Mart’s.
Scary, YES. So, we settled for what we called, ‘crap peanut butter,’
because the alternatives were candy bars and more white bread.
They even served white bread at Chinese Restaurants.
Speaking of Chinese Restaurants, we were so excited to find one
close to the hospital, and even saw “aubergine” on the menu.
French for ‘eggplant.” Voila!!
NOT…they soaked and fried it in fish oil…none of us could stomach it.
In addition to the white bread that came with our meal, they also
served white rice. HOLY STARCH! The ICU doctors and nurses
told us “sugar and starch are the downfall of Tahiti & diabetes
is an epidemic over there, too.”
My vision of Tahitian food before our “adventure,” was that of
fresh veggies and fruits a plenty.
Not so, Mo!
The MORSEL of this story:
try to stop putting labels on everything
Mo,
I had the pleasure of sitting next to YOU & YOUR MOM on the flight from Tahiti to LA! First of all, How is your Dad doing? Thank you for sharing your family event! Hope everything is working out!
I just placed an order as I like”healthy!” And keep working at making better food choices! Please say HI to your Mom and keep in touch!
Thank you so much, Susan!
You are so sweet!
I’m going to send you a personal email!
Best,
Mo
Maura, I really appreciated this – I always pictured the food in Tahiti to be similar to Hawaii with lots of fresh fruits and good local food. I’m so glad to know about this ahead of time for when I do go to Tahiti some day….
I had an experience once when I was driving cross country and my car broke down in Oklahoma. I had to stay at a “one hotel” town’s hotel for 2 days while waiting for my car to be repaired and the only place to eat was the “grill” next door. Everything was cooked on a grill with Crisco or fried in a deep-fryer. Being vegetarian at the time, the only options were greasy grilled cheese sandwiches, greasy cheese omelets, french fries or onion rings. I will never forget that!
Oh, Mary, I completely EMPATHIZE with you!
Thank you for reading and for sharing!
Have a Morselicious day!
That’s FUNNY, Karen! I hear you!
(Sigh) yes moderation should be the path of choice, but sometimes that monkey chocolate just won’t get off my back!