On a diet or just waffling

My late friend Karen decided she wanted to be a nun. She gave me her bicycle helmet and joined the Missionary Sisters of Charity. She didn’t do things halfway. I think she even met Mother Teresa.

Karen got a new name: Michaeletta. But she ultimately decided she wasn’t meant to be a nun and left the order before taking her final vows. She returned to being Karen, somewhat changed.

I wasn’t around Karen much after her serious adventure, but I remember one thing she said she learned:

Not everybody cares about eating right. Some people just worry about eating.

Apparently, most of her fellow novitiates were from poor countries. They didn’t ponder the effects of doughnuts on the human body. If doughnuts were edible, that’s what mattered.

Michaeletta, in the name of good health, had previously done things like substitute carob for chocolate in her brownie recipe. (I know because I had to eat some.) Ah, the irony. Karen joined a strict religious order and found herself forced to abandon her strict self-imposed food regimen.

Is it proof our civilization has advanced when we worry about the finer points of what we eat? The worship of good nutrition is one tenet of our national religion. We may not eat the right stuff, but we generally know when to feel guilty. That’s what counts.

Butter and high fructose corn syrup come to mind. How bad are they? Yum. I think I’ll toast a waffle.

We humans are blessed with the ability to rationalize. Ordinary waffles are probably as bad for us as ordinary white bread. But if I spend my income on stuff like high-priced wholegrain waffles (do they even make them?), I’ll have less money to give at church or to a charity that feeds the proverbial starving children in Africa.

At least I get points for not putting any kind of syrup on my waffles. Or do I?

For whatever reason, I don’t like syrup. If a sin is unappealing, do you get credit for not doing it? I hope so, but when it comes to my syrup abstention, I balance things out with butter.

Incidentally, the label on my frozen waffles calls them “homestyle.” Substitute “like mama used to make.” It’s a great marketing strategy that shoots for the heart and means whatever. “Homestyle” sells stuff.

In the household of my youth, Daddy made the batter, and Mother poured it into the waffle iron.

Microwaving ready-made waffles is so blah compared to pouring batter onto hot cast iron and squeezing it down with another piece of hot cast iron. And waiting.

If it weren’t for functioning waffle irons in do-it-yourself hotel breakfast areas, today’s children wouldn’t know where waffles come from.

In conclusion, here’s something even Karen-Michaeletta might not have known:

Thanks to a play on words, the Feast of the Annunciation is also known as Waffle Day in Sweden and celebrated accordingly by all Swedes, even those who believe only in waffles.

I’m inspired to eat one more.

This article originally appeared on Wichita Falls Times Record News: On a diet or just waffling