I Can Make You Hot! by Kelly Killoren Bensimon Read Free Book Online Page B

because the thing that is forbidden is sure to become the thing you want most. As I’ve said, I’m stubborn. When I was sixteen years old and the Elite Modeling Agency told me that I needed to lose ten pounds, the first thing I did was call a close friend who was living in New York. We walked around the city as I ate a DoveBar while telling him about the weight I “needed” to lose. Nowadays, I don’t turn to chocolate as a comfort food when I’m stressed. I eat a lot of fruit, particularly in the morning because it gets me going without weighing me down. I like to mix different kinds of berries because they look so colorful and appetizing in a bowl, over cereal or yogurt.
    Color is important for a variety of reasons. Having different colors on your plate makes the meal more appealing, but those different colored foods also provide different nutrients. There’s absolutely no reason why you, wherever you live, can’t eat “colorful” foods. All over the country there are “gi-normous” supermarkets where fruit and vegetable aisles are bursting with every color of the rainbow. The days when all you could get in Dayton (no offense to Dayton intended) was iceberg lettuce and pale pink tomatoes are long gone! In fact, I love going to the supermarket in every city I visit. The variety of foods I find is just amazing.
    In February 2011, I was invited by Generosity Water ( www.generositywater.org ) to go to Haiti. I’d raised money to help them bring clean water to the country and they asked me to go and see one of the wells I’d helped to build. When I got there, I was first taken aback to see so many kids eating mainly pasta and hot dogs for lunch, but then I realized that they really didn’t have any other options. They ate what was available to them to get the energy they needed. Generosity Water’s purpose in providing clean water is to make it possible for the Haitian people to farm and, therefore, eat more fresh vegetables. At the same time, clean water improves sanitation, which will lead to better health.
    Luckily, most of us in America have all these things; we just need to make healthier choices among all the options that are available to us.
    That’s the good news. The bad news is that abundance can be confusing—not to mention tempting. Like department stores with displays of gorgeous options, food markets are also designed to get you to buy. All that colorful, fun packaging can make the food appear as enticing as a pair of Manolo Blahniks. You can go to a market with a list and the best of intentions…and then it happens. You’re mesmerized by the unlimited possibilities, and you want it all. It’s happened to me, so I know what it’s like. If you go to a market such as Whole Foods, all the exotic ingredients from far-off lands are enough to send your taste buds on a world tour. I think it’s great to try new things and figure out how you can mix and match what’s there to make a FrenAsian or an ItaloGreek meal. But if you’re not careful, you can also come home with overloaded shopping bags and an empty wallet. So, when you go to a food store, approach it like a department store: Be conscious of the distractions, and don’t get carried away by the temptations.
    Here are a few tips on how to avoid the pits those sneaky food marketers are hoping you’ll fall into when you enter their stores:
1. Always go with a list and never buy more than two items you planned on taking home.
2. Bakery items are most often right at the front of the store so that you’ll be more likely to load them in your cart right away, when you’re not too tired, out of money, or out of time after walking up and down the aisles.
3. Staples like eggs, butter, and milk are often at the back of the store so that you have to walk through tempting aisles of junk food to get to them. Instead of walking through the center of the market, walk around the perimeter where all the fresh produce is displayed (and avoid the freezers