Not Your Regular Junkie #236

When I found out that junkie was a bad word, I was taken aback. Because as far as I knew, that was my nickname. The name everyone in my immediate family, especially my Dad called me. “Tessie, the junkie.” Simply because of my love for junk foods. When everyone found out what junkie actually meant, they quietly switched to junkmaster, or junk queen. And I truly was the Queen of Junk. If it wasn’t cakes, meatpies, sausage rolls and the likes, I wouldn’t eat, and maybe then, the good old, rice, because you really can never go wrong with Nigerian rice.

What type of food do you prefer? Are you on the ‘healthy team’ or do you prefer junk food? Or do you simply maintain a good balance between the two?

So, all of this pretty much stopped as I became and adult. I still struggle with my attitude of splurging, so I learnt to stop spending so much money on it, and that’s the thing, yeah? Junk foods are way more expensive than healthy foods. So, it’s like you paying more for something detrimental to your health. Nevertheless, I love a good burger, and then the good old beef/chicken and sausage wrap laced with mayo and other juicy stuff that we call shawarma. It costs a lot to get a good wrap, and I haven’t indulged myself in the longest time, but I still plan to at some point.

It’s funny cause for such a formerly ardent lover of junk foods, I’ve cut down drastically on the amount of junk I take. There’s a popular joke in my country that “Nigeria has a way of healing you from the worst junk addictions.” Because by the time you find out that a single wrap of good shawarma is four thousand naira, and you calculate within yourself that this will be enough for three full healthy meals, I don’t think anyone would need to tell you to quickly leave the fast food eatery, and go get some good soup, lol.

One of the easiest ways I balance my healthy food consumption with my occasional splurging on purely junk foods is fruits. Fruits are my way of balancing it all. I like to call it my little cheat code. So, when I eat good junk for most of a particular day, I spend the entirety of the next day gouging on fruits as a way of detoxification. I think it’s an amusing way to beg your body that you didn’t mean to cause it harm through the junk food, and this is your way of pacifying it.

I’m happy now that the household mostly calls me a foodie, and not a junkie, anymore. There’s only so much healthy food you can eat in school environment, anyway, so when I get back home, I can trust to be fed greens till I’m submerged in it. My Mom is a sucker for healthy stuff. Most African mothers are, anyway. We call her the herbalist at home because she feeds us a variety of herbs like our lives depend on it. Rice is covered with so many greens and vegetables that the rice itself turns green, and each morning, we’ve got to drink some green drink made from herbs in the garden to “rid you of the poison I’m sure you consume in school,” in her exact words.

All in all, I love healthy food. I feel refreshed after each meal, but there would always be that occasional craving for decadent junk food. Hopefully, I’ll get even better at not giving in. Or not.

Jhymi🖤

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