Sira-sira store: Junk wisdom

WE ARE barely two weeks into the new year and already we are feeling the load of the excessive feasting we did during the holidays.

After going through mountains of spaghetti, swimming in liters of soft drinks, climbing poles upon poles of barbecued pork, we now feel the Blood Sugar Patrol pumping the sweet stuff into our bloodstream, and the Cholesterol Brigade ganging up on our arteries—Gangnam Style.

It is nothing to rap about, really, because the Surgeon General keeps telling us that we eat too much sugar (in the guise of tarts and cakes), fat and meat. And we do feel we need to correct our bad habits, but we negatively react by grabbing anything with a crunch to the munch instead.

When you get this desperate, it is time to turn to junk wisdom. Confess it. As a working guy and gal, most of your lunches and dinners are eaten either in a fast food restaurant or the office canteen.

It becomes harder to stay faithful with the Surgeon General about eating healthy food when you are confronted with fatty choices in most fast food restaurants. Harder still it becomes when you dine out with friends. You don’t want to be the corny one among the group, lecturing your peers about vegetables and other “poisonous” stuff.

It took me years to perfect the junk wisdom and here I am sharing it with you—for free. Simply put, it is looking for greener options among the dozens of choices on a restaurant’s menu. It can be applied anywhere, without you playing holier-than-thou among your peers who go for evil roasts, sausages, pork steaks and other bad foods.

For a confessed carnivore, that is a pretty hard statement I just made. I don’t believe roasts, beef and pork are evil. It’s my lack of self-control. And that’s the crux of the matter. In junk wisdom you exercise self-control.

When you step into a fast food restaurant, commit to eat only what’s less evil.

Red Ribbon has a pretty good fried bangus with a siding of pickled papaya for your conscience. Order a la carte so you can skip the creamy cake that goes with the budget meal.

KFC has a nice “Pasta Bowl Alfredo,” with the noodles al dente as it should be. Taken with the restaurant’s fresh green salad and strawberry-yogurt Krushers drink, you have made a junk wisdom choice without antagonizing your friends about being “health-conscious in 2013.”

Orange Brutus has an interesting variety of quick meals, including the vegetable lumpia Shanghai with rice. It is simple, tasty and a junk wisdom item.

Another fast food resto that is trying to keep people healthy is Jollibee. It has a bangus dish with a slice of tomato (very nutritious) and a pasta-green salad medley for good luck.

Chowking is tops when it comes to green choices, and has definitely a doctorate in junk wisdom. The restaurant has steamed tangkong (go slowly on the salty fried uyap dip), chopsuey, ramen with pechay, and tokwa’t baboy. You can ask the service crew to give you plain tokwa only if you have “porky” restrictions.

There is a way to satisfying your hunger for fast food. Just master junk wisdom.