Chop suey taught me how to eat veggies. It was one of those lunches in my lola's place where I had my first encounter with this dish. At first, I simply learned to love eating (or slurping) the "sauce", the thick liquid lying at the bottom of the bowl sporting the combined punch of all the ingredients in the dish. Then, I graduated eating the "subak", the small cuts of meat, deliberately mixed into the fray to provide some added flavor and protein.
Afterwards came the hardest part of my training: eating the actual vegetables themselves. And, like any child would tell you, this is the part we dread the most. I gagged, vomited, choked my way into forcing my body to accept munching on these foreign objects until the time came when eating vegetables became second nature.
Still, I did not crave vegetables. Yes, I've learned to eat it but I wasn't necessarily looking for it. Oftentimes, I would find myself nitpicking pansit, making sure no vegetable got its way into my extended fork.
Finally, vegetables became a part of my diet but it was a product of circumstance. I was in Manila then and, being the occasional miser, I chose the cheapest dish I could get whenever I fancied saving more money. Obviously, that dish would be pure, unadulterated vegetables and there I found my motivation.
It's amazing what people will do for money. In my case, I forced myself to like eating vegetables because I paid for it. Leaving anything on my plate un-eaten felt like a terrible waste of money.
From then on, I graduated to eating more veggies. Still, my mother would frown at us not eating enough but, then again, she doesn't see what I eat outside the house. If karma is indeed real, I could even be a goat in my next life, considering the amount of leaves I chew on.
Anybody a fan of the show, Veggie Tales?
Afterwards came the hardest part of my training: eating the actual vegetables themselves. And, like any child would tell you, this is the part we dread the most. I gagged, vomited, choked my way into forcing my body to accept munching on these foreign objects until the time came when eating vegetables became second nature.
Still, I did not crave vegetables. Yes, I've learned to eat it but I wasn't necessarily looking for it. Oftentimes, I would find myself nitpicking pansit, making sure no vegetable got its way into my extended fork.
Finally, vegetables became a part of my diet but it was a product of circumstance. I was in Manila then and, being the occasional miser, I chose the cheapest dish I could get whenever I fancied saving more money. Obviously, that dish would be pure, unadulterated vegetables and there I found my motivation.
It's amazing what people will do for money. In my case, I forced myself to like eating vegetables because I paid for it. Leaving anything on my plate un-eaten felt like a terrible waste of money.
From then on, I graduated to eating more veggies. Still, my mother would frown at us not eating enough but, then again, she doesn't see what I eat outside the house. If karma is indeed real, I could even be a goat in my next life, considering the amount of leaves I chew on.
Anybody a fan of the show, Veggie Tales?
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