peechie wrote this in the early morning:
Does this mean I’ve been slashdotted (check the dates)? I suspect the world will never know. [...]

Mike: oh.. the wicked, wicked Miss Vicki!

tye: I’m not so much worried about the healthy or low-fat aspect. A cheese slice is a cheese slice - more chemicals than cheese, whether they make it fat-free or not. Some great artisan cheese is far preferable to the kraft cheese-type product! But for some reason, I still eat the Kraft every now and again.

A couple of ideas for you:

- only eat the comfort food if you have made it from scratch (funny thing - like Mike, I have recently fallen in love with squash soup as well - a great recipe from the guy who does the plants at my office - easy to make, freezes well, tastes GREAT!)

- try fat-free cheese slices - all the taste, no fat and a quick hit of protein

- get raw almonds (best value are the HUGE bags at COSTCO)

- get low-fat microwave popcorn - lots of carbs but very satisfying

- if you need a carb fix, get some all grain, low-carb bread (Silver Hills is great), pop it in the toaster and, if you are so inclined, slather it with all natural peanut butter and maybe a wee bit of honey

On another note, your story reminded me of my own Mom - I too was lucky that she stayed at home to care for four kids - I wouldn’t say she was a great cook, but she covered the basics well enough.

Her gift was homemade bread - once a week, every week for the first 17 years of my life, I remember my Mom baking enough bread to feed her family and a select group of her friends.

It was fantastic bread, but I always craved store-bought white bread as it made better toast and tasted soooo yummy even with just butter melted on it. Of course I never eat the stuff now!

This strategy has worked well for Mel and I. We just tend not to buy crap. If we’re sick or stressed or “artificially hungry”, we’d wolf down some doritos or pizza pops if they were around. Since they’re not around, we eat a spinach salad instead.