Living In Denial

When my husband's sister, Virginia, was alive, she kept the entire family amused by denying her age.  Some people call it "lying" about one's age, but with Virginia, we always called it "being in denial."  For example, one day at lunch, her daughter told us that she was having her 50th birthday the second day.  Virginia, who was then past 80 years old, asked "how can that be? when I am only 60?'Denial must run in the family, because my husband has lately figured out a way to deny both his weight and his age.  He calculates his weight in kilograms (divide the number of  pounds by 2.2 to get kilograms).  And he calculates his age in Celsius (Fahrenheit temperature minus 32 times 5/9), which produces a much smaller number.I have a friend who claims to be a very nutrition savvy. He told me that he fallow the food pyramid and ate only what was recommended for his height and weight.  He said for breakfast her rarely finish one serving of carbohydrates and serving of fruit.  When I asked him to write down everything he consumed, I learned that his idea of one serving of a carbohydrate is a large bowl of cereal, a whole bagel with cream cheese, and a banana.  One serving of a drink, according to him, is two glasses of orange juice.  So, his idea of a serving was the sized of the meal he heat in one seating.  I don't need to tell you how shocked he was when I figured that his breakfast alone came to 9 serving of carbohydrate, almost all his daily allowance for carb.Those who are struggling daily with too much weight are caught up in the purely American notion that everything must be super-sized.  We buy an extra large popcorn in the theatre because we can get a free refil of a food that we've already had too much of.  The same is true with soda, and with fast food meals.We have come to understand which fats are bad for us.  We are beginning to understand that junk foods are not good for us, but what we haven't come to terms with is, what is a proper serving size for the food we eat.  Vegan Basil Pesto makes 2 cups12      ounces lite tofu6        cloves garlic1        cup chopped fresh basilzest of one lemon1/2   cup olive oilsalt to taste-Place all items in a food processor and puree until you have smooth paste.