Social isolation is the price I pay for eating sauerkraut and sardines

While I spent much of 2023 eating too much food, I will take some credit for at least eating healthy food.

Most days you can count on me to ingest plenty of fruits and vegetables, some leafy greens at lunch, a lot of whole grains and nuts, and at least a small portion of fish.

There are two downsides to eating healthy like this.

One is that it is expensive and somewhat inconvenient. I make frequent shopping trips just to keep myself stocked with healthy stuff, and I am consistently taken aback by the price of, say, berries. Berries are expensive. So are many other fruits, especially when you buy organic.

But then you ask yourself how much your health is worth, and that admittedly takes some of the sting out of it.

The other drawback is that, in my experience, there are some healthy foods that simply stink. I mean, like, they literally smell.

For example. I try to take in some sort of fermented food every day, either in the form of sauerkraut or kimchi. I like the smell and taste of both, but neither of my housemates agrees.

The same holds true for sardines. When I want to crack open a tin of sardines, I take it out to the garage and stand there with a fork eating it to avoid getting sardine smell in the house.

I do this out of courtesy to Terry and Jack, even though I feel like a smoker huddling in front of an office building getting a nicotine fix.

Ten years ago, I never would have imagined myself a social outcast for wanting to eat tiny fish. I guess when I'm 120 years old and still ticking, I'll have the last laugh.

I'll be standing outside eating sardines, of course, but I'll still be laughing.