I Like Cookies

Here's the problem, I've never meet a cookie I didn't like. Oh sure, some cookies are better than others, but when it comes right down to it, they're all my friends. Take the common Oreo for example. It's dry. It's cream filling to cookie ratio is slightly inadequate, although double stuff goes too far. And yet, I can eat them by the pound. Grandma used to keep Chips Ahoy in the cupboard. To this day I equate those waxy little chocolate chips with love.

Moving up the chain of life, to the king of all cookies, the highly exalted, fresh from the oven, Nestle Toll House chocolate chip cookie. Never before have ten ingredients achieved such culinary perfection. Even if the baker insists upon including walnuts, which are unnecessary at the least, the Toll House cookie rises to the prominence of cookie of all cookies. I hear the hallelujah chorus.

To be fair, cookies aren't really the problem. A cookie is just a cookie; a lump of ingredients sitting in Grandma's cookie jar. The problem is me, and the misguided emotional attachment I place on them.

In my mind cookies are good. Cookies are love. The problem is cookies do not return my loyalty and affection. Cookies, any food for that matter, are neither good or evil. They are simply a mass of calories in a matrix of carbs, fat and protein. Cookies are fuel for the body; admittedly not on the same level as lean meat or broccoli, but fuel none the less.

The fundamental issue here isn't cookies, its emotional eating. I eat if I'm happy, to celebrate. I eat if I'm sad, to commiserate. I eat because it feels good, for comfort. Food is my drug. I can walk past bottles and bongs but put a cookie in my path and I forget where I'm going. Weight loss surgery is a tool towards my goal. The real work is going to be when I have to stare-down my old friend the cookie and not flinch.