A theory about snacks...

I spent the weekend at my parents, celebrating the Memorial Day holiday. She's always got a variety of snacks, but most importantly, the fridge and counter have fruit readily at hand. Apples, bananas, oranges, peaches, cantaloupe, grapes, you name it.

I like having fresh fruit around. It is obviously much healthier than chips, cookies and candy, and it generally tastes better... once you've weaned yourself from the fat-and-sugar train. However, I find that I don't keep it around as much as I could, and this weekend made me wonder about why?

Of course, I now have a theory.

At home, I'm generally the only person who eats a large quantity of fresh fruit. It should be different, and my kids do enjoy fruit, but that's the way it is. Being essentially "fruit-single", I find myself trapped between going to the market almost daily and having so much fruit around that I can't eat it all before it goes bad.

On the other hand, the pre-packaged, mass produced stuff - the cookies, candy, chewy bars and chips - will last effectively forever. I can stockpile it in the pantry and eat it at will. There's always plenty, it almost never goes bad, and requires no preparation. Perfect food!

Except, it's not perfect. In fact, it's usually pretty terrible. Whatever you think about HFCS, it's not sugar. And it's most certainly not natural. Plus, the chips are greasy, the cookies are a terrible choice for a diabetic, and all of it is way too many carbs and not enough nutrients.

Sure you could stock up on nuts, granola, and other non-perishable natural or organic things, but it just isn't ... fruit.

So I'm going to go on a mission. How to make it easy to keep fruit around the house without having it rot on me and without having to make too many trips to the store.

Step one: Get my kids to eat more fruit...