What Would Popeye Do?

F.D.A. Warns Against Eating Bag Spinach - New York Times  

    Now, those of you who've been following this journal know two things:

    First, I eat a lot of fried meat, and:

     I contract food poisoning with an almost habitual frequency.  Trust me.  If there's a tainted something out there, it will inevitably find its way into my tummy, and I will suffer and whine and spend several days creating abstract mathematical formulae to determine the number of tiles on my bathroom floor. 

    Now, with that in mind, yesterday I decided to "go healthy."  I figured a salad would be nice, and since I consider lettuce to be the boring, institutional beige of leafy green stuff, and since bags of baby spinach were currently being hawked at two for two-dollars and some change, I excitedly grabbed a couple of those and proceeded to buy croutons, tomatoes, and sundry bits and pieces to make this salad yummy.

    By the time I got around to picking up a little puck of something that will make my toilet water blue, I was actually coming to the realization that tonight's dinner would probably be the healthiest thing I've eaten since an ex-girlfriend and I stayed at a hotel three and a half years ago whose restaurant only served vegetarian dishes, and I was forced to choke down a "Nutburger" --pretty much mashed, pre-masticated granola on a bun with lettuce, tomato and some sort of vegan organic mayo whose taste reminded me of my torturous stretch in pre-school. 

    Anyway, on my way home from the store, I passed by McDonald's: The Home of the Meatless Big Mac, and I gave them a quick, intellectual finger with the notion that I am going to eat a super-healthy spinach salad for dinner. 

     I walked in the door, set my bag of salad fixin's on the stove and proceeded to grab the biggest freaking bowl I could find (and yes.  For a briefmoment, I DID actually think about just tossing the whole thing into bucket and simply having at the delicious pile of greenery like a farm animal, but even alone, I still have a few manners). 

     Once the salad was all assembled to my liking, I plopped down, turned on the TV, jabbed my fork into the pile of greens and heard someone from the Milwaukee County Health Department say, "If you've bought bagged spinach in the last week or two, we strongly urge you to throw it away."

      Well...  It looked like a nice salad at least, and for a moment, the adrenaline-junkie in me considered taking a chance.  But, common-sense got the better of me, and I tossed my salad in the trash and dragged my red-faced self to McDonald's where Quarter Pounders with Cheese are buy-one-get-one free. 

-DP