This is the ultimate food weekend in this country. I am slowly adapting to all the American holidays and somehow melting them together with our Swedish ones. I really think Thanksgiving is a nice tradition and it’s good to look around you and be thankful for what you got. (The days after with Black Friday etc I don’t like.) The Swedish holidays includes more cooked food and traditions that goes back hundreds and hundreds of years. We are lucky that way. It’s food that is treated like gold, cured and salted, slow cooked and interesting. And every year it gets a bit more up to date and green. Christmas lasts for weeks, the sunlight in summer is celebrated with food and drinks and Easter is a full week of remembrance and food. I still haven’t figured out how the Easter bunny is connected to Jesus’ death. 🙂

So food, this constant rebel messing with peoples life’s. It’s a lot of stuff going on in my feed concerning food and training and it does not always go well together. The hated carbs, the yelled at fats and even fruit is dissed. Love all, serve all. Apparently a lot of people planned on eating endless amounts of food Thursday. I get it, turkey is tasty and all the fixings can be good too but how much is possible to eat and why? It sounds like it’s the only day of the year you get cooked food. Turkey is good food, lean meat, good protein. Why mess with it? We ate turkey, mash, stuffing, lots of veggies and a good sauce. With friends and family. (And what is the difference between a cream sauce and gravy? Is it the thickness? I prefer the not so thick sauce but you still need to cook it a few hours to get the taste deep with blackberries, wine and lots cream.) So back to eating a lot. I am really not liking when people say they have to earn their food, work up a good sweat to eat, do the work and get the reward. Food is not a reward, we should all get good food every day and we should all be able to cook up a good meal every day. It’s energy, it’s fuel for your body. Don’t teach your kids to eat up to get dessert. I don’t understand the reward system aka the cupcake hysteria. That was one of the first culture shocks when we moved here. Every time the kids did something good in school they came home with candy and cupcake frosting on their face. Dentists hands out lollipops and every holiday is celebrated with decorating cookies.

Be grateful for a good meal and if you are lucky to be able to run, workout or take a walk, good. But never feel like you have to burn calories to eat, it’s part of life, but it is your choice what you eat. But strength and endurance on the other hand – that is a reward of good work!