Fair Food Facts

It's Labor Day weekend, and at our house that means one thing - a trip to the Geauga County Fair to look at horses, pet goats and eat stuff we probably shouldn't. The weird thing is that as I become more health conscious, and hopefully healthier, some of the things I used to want to eat have lost their appeal. I'm not sure there are any really good choices at the fair but I'm sure that some are better than others. I recently saw a segment on Rachel Ray (yes I am still easing into my new life and occasionally catching some daytime TV) about Amusement Park & Fair Food that was surprising. For instance, did you know that a giant soft pretzel, with mustard rather than cheese sauce it between 500 and 800 calories? It's like eating half a loaf of  white bread - no nutritional value there. Another shocker is a snow cone - 540 calories! Now I don't think anyone would suggest that a snow cone is anything but sugar syrup and ice - again no food there - but who knew the calorie count was so high?

 We were there for several hours, and settled on (in this order) a giant meatball in tomato sauce (courtesy of a caterer from Little Italy), a grilled chicken pita, eating mostly the filling and ditching some of the pita, a baked potato with butter and sour cream, a Superboli (a Stromboli filled with sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms and cheese, coffee with cream and a chocolate dipped cannoli of the chocolate chip variety (back to the Little Italy caterer).

 I see a trend here - my food inhibitions diminished and then dissappeared the longer I stayed and wandered around looking at Fair Food. Well, at least it wasn't giant pretzels or snow cones. Walt partook of most of this nutritional disaster too, eschewing only the cannoli - but making up for it by eating most of the butter laden baked potato.

You can buy good things at the fair - there was a lot of gorgeous produce - but it just doesn't seem right to walk around the Fair munching on a cucumber. We did our best to make up for our nutritional debauchery by walking around a lot, drinking a triple shot of MonaVie when we got home, and by going right back on our healthy eating plan the next day. According to my bathroom scale, which granted is notoriously inaccurate,  I still managed to drop a pound last week (sushi!) God is good.

Inspirational Fair Food

Food Pyramid