My first denunciation of shit food  came unrighteously. It was years ago when I stood firmly in my home and demanded that I would not eat Macaroni and Cheese out of that damnable box anymore. My wife can live on the stuff. I was foundered in it. It's cheap, easy, and convenient. It felt like we ate it as a side three nights a week and as a lunch equally as often. I was done with it. I knew that it couldn't be doing my health any favors and I was so damn sick of even looking at it. It led to a lot of domestic strife. The strife really did not end. Occasionally I would find an empty blue box in the garbage. I would grill her about her gastronomical infidelity. There would be a small quarrel and I always came out feeling like the dickface in the matter. But I stuck to my guns.

Then Kroger put this stuff on sale.

I don't yet know how I feel about it. It's been about 7 years since I boycotted boxed mac and cheese. I no longer fly into a homicidal rage when I see it prepared. I read labels so I can appreciate that the Annie's variety is probably healthier to put in my body as it's ingredients list doesn't look like an inventory of a collegiate chemistry lab. It tastes almost exactly like the crafty name brand. So we do have it, occasionally, as a side dish now. Everything in moderation, including moderation, right?

I guess this is how we reach Joe Sixpack? Cleverly replace his favorite shit food addictions with alternatives that look and taste the same? I don't know that I agree with the philosophy, but it makes things a bit less tense in my house.

Sandwiches are my kind of grub. I'll eat damn near anything if it's wedged between two slices of bread. In fact, bread makes up a HUGE portion of my diet. The past year and a half has brought major changes to the way my family eats. In baby steps. Bread was a impenetrable steel fortress. We MUST have bread. But bread has industrialized chemicals in it. Don't believe me? Just look for yourself:

Whole wheat flour, water, wheat gluten, high fructose corn syrup, contains 2% of less of: soybean oil, salt, molasses, yeast, mono and diglycerides, exthoxylated mono and diglycerides, dough conditioners (sodium stearoyl lactylate, calcium iodate, calcium dioxide), datem, calcium sulfate, vinegar, yeast nutrient (ammonium sulfate), extracts of malted barley and corn, dicalcium phosphate, diammonium phosphate, calcium propionate (to retain freshness).

This is the ingredient list for a popular brand of bread straight from the supermarket shelf. We'll call it Blunderbread. When was the last time you went out to the garden and ate dicalcium phosphate off the vine? And look! There's our old friend high fructose corn syrup! See my predicament?

So what's a guy to do? Bake my own bread? Are you crazy? Nobody does that shit anymore. Right?

After a long talk with my loving wife explaining the problem and trying to find a non-hypocritical solution to get my bread fix, she agreed to the unthinkable. She would bake all of the sandwich bread consumed in our house. And she has. Since November, 100% of our loafed bread has been produced by my wife and daughter. Roughly two loaves a week. It's all made by hand, from scratch with organic unbleached flours. She's recently even got the knack for making whole wheat bread. I am ecstatic. Scratch made bread tastes so much better. Hell, it tastes. It must be healthier. It can be done. Really, it can. Bread is such a convenience food. But at the cost of nutrition, industrialization, and most important (to me, at least), taste.

We are still occasionally buying specific purpose breads. Namely burger/hot dog buns. However, my genius love of my life crafted buns in the form of homemade soft pretzels. Please follow me. Bacon cheddar burgers (grass fed, free range, organic) on homemade pretzel buns. This was one of the most amazing meals of my entire fucking life. I had the 'Itis immediately after. Took fifteen minutes to sleep it off. It was a truly spiritual experience.

Go bake bread.