M&M's

I bought a dollar’s worth of Valentine M&M’s at the Bookstore yesterday and I swear they taste different than regular M&M’s. Growing up, I could always tell the difference when I ate Easter M&M’s as well, but Christmas and Halloween M&M’s have always seemed normal to me. Maybe it’s the pastel colors…probably it’s all psychological.

Last year I started noticing how people eat their M&M's, and it was pretty interesting. The first time I noticed it was when I was sitting with a group of other students around a table with a bowl of M&M's in the middle. No one would just grab a handful of M&M's and pop them into their mouth. Instead, they would carefully arrange them by color on the table before actually eating them. Some simply divided them into different-colored piles (that's generally my method) while others created intricate patterns and then destroyed the pattern one M&M at a time. It was fascinating, and I have begun to notice the M&M phenomenon in other settings as well.

I really didn’t need a dollar’s worth of M&M’s yesterday, because I know I will eat them all (though not in one day, of course). I keep vowing that I’m going to develop healthier eating habits. I doesn't seem like it should be too hard—I already do quite well (most of the time) at eating my 5-a-day fruits and veggies, choosing whole grains over refined flours, avoiding soda and greasy snack foods, ordering healthy choices when I eat out. Running has made me very conscious of how different foods affect my energy level and my overall feeling of well-being. But unfortunately I have a horrible sweet tooth. My dad and brother suffer from this as well, and my grandmother claims that all the cousins have inherited our chocolate addictions from our grandfather. Honestly, I don’t think I go a single day without eating some form of chocolate or another, and at the very least I get my daily sugar fix.

The funny thing is that I pretend to control my addiction by avoiding certain products, but it’s only a cover-up. I will not buy cookies at the store, but I will make cookies every other week (sometimes more) and consume my daily caloric needs in cookie dough. I never buy entire candy bars, and if someone gives me one I tend not to eat it. But I will buy candy in bulk from the Bookstore where it’s easy to down an entire package-worth of M&M’s without consciously acknowledging that I have just downed an entire package-worth. I will rarely cut myself an entire slice of cake to consume in one sitting, but if there is extra birthday cake lying around the apartment I will cut myself enough little mini-slices throughout the day that I might as well have just eaten a whole piece.

Fortunately I have an active lifestyle and have inherited a good metabolism, so it’s not something I really need to worry about it. But that doesn’t stop me from feeling guilty (just slightly) every time I succumb to temptation…which is pretty much on a daily basis! Oh well...to give up an addiction you have to want to give it up, and quite honestly I like M&M's too much to even think about removing them from my diet.