It’s time to admit it. I’ve struggled with it and kept it at bay for almost ten years.

I’m not a drinker, or a smoker or a drug-taker or fashion addict. I have no desire to cheat on my husband–or even think about that. But, here it is, from the safety of my office looking out over a picture perfect organic farm on the first full day of Autumn: I am not the Food Saint people think I am.

If only we could grow a line of Reeces...

They’ve had good reason to bestow upon us a culinary corona of honor. We probably eat better than most people in the world. If you look at the source of our vegetables, the brands of cereal and bread in our kitchen, the Joel Salatin meats in the refrigerator, it’s all the best. We drink water from a beautiful “Dolphin” water distiller. We have fresh organic garlic to swallow raw when we come down with the first symptoms of a cold, or to sauté in Extra Virgin Olive Oil for the many meals that are born in our heavy, black, cast iron pans. We buy the best yogurt, from the Heritage Store or Virginia Garden, our chickens lay the eggs we eat, and I can’t describe how magnificent this year’s honey tastes. And let’s not even dispute that the coffee we drink is the tastiest, most wonderful, fair trade organic that we can find.

We don’t eat that factory produced meat, or those eggs from chickens raised in squalor, or those processed foods full of corn syrup. We’re living right. We’re healthy, blessed with great choices, genes and sources of wonderful food.

But that’s not the whole picture.

The source of my breakdown in food ethics? Look no further than the family sweet tooth.

It starts with ice cream. Breyer’s Ice Cream, specifically, the treat my family won’t resist. We may not know about the origin and lifestyle of the cows who give the milk for Breyer’s, but it’s a risk we take because it tastes so great and it has so few ingredients.

The truth is, our house is a pretty Holy Place when it comes to food and nutrition, and that’s a lot of pressure. My husband, Farmer John, knows so much about our food–how it grows, its nutritional denseness, their reproduction patterns, all of it. But with this knowledge comes a certain burden, a lack of eating innocence. Meal time at our house sometimes make me feel like I am living in a “program” of sorts.

So, in secret, I crave the old foods that were part of my earlier life, back when eating was just eating. And sometimes, I give in.

Just because it looks good, doesn't mean it IS good.

My sin takes the form of an occasional Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, or two, or this week, the dark Chocolate Snickers bar that I thought I was saving for  Wayne, the wonderful English guy who works on our farm. But instead of giving the Snickers to Wayne I hid it, then ate half, then finished the other half when I was writing a long article for Tidewater Women Magazine on Sunday. I told Wayne about the Dark Snickers, and he admitted he’s already tried one, but said “What I really love is a Snickers ice Cream Bar with a crepe wrapped around it.”

I couldn’t help but drool with desire.

But even if my husband absolves me for my sins against Good Food, my body isn’t as forgiving. I’m fifty-something. My earlier gift for slimness has been replaced by a womanly form that might have been in vogue a century ago, but isn’t anymore. This is the obvious thing about “eating right” that people tend to forget: It’s not just about a movement; it’s about protecting the one body you’ll ever have.

So I pay for my sins in very earthly ways. I walk a little more. I get on the bicycle instead of taking the car to the mailbox about a mile from our house. Those kind of little, everyday things that keep my body in harmony. Because though the body we can control, the mind is of its own. Even right now, just as I’m typing this essay semi-chastising myself for sneaking up to my office with processed chocolate bars made from milk from who-knows, where, there’s almost nothing I wouldn’t give for  a banana split from Dairy Queen.

So you see, I live a paradox. I live amongst the best food growing from my own land. I’m fully versed in healthy eco-culture. And I jones for Reece’s Pieces and Dairy Queen. Just the life of a modern farmer’s wife, I guess.

Home grown meals like this have a way of keeping both body and soul in good condition.

* * *

Sometimes, on a cool, cloudy day, if I’m on my way home from teaching, I drive through McDonald’s’s and get a fish sandwich- mainly because it connects me to a childhood memory: Whenever we went to the golden arches with my Mom, she ordered a fish sandwich and a cup of coffee. It was grown up. It was different than our cheeseburgers and fries and shakes. So I order the food and I drive through and get it and I have a moment of food-fact amnesia. I really savor that fried fish rectangle with the creamy tartar sauce and the much-too-soft bun. It’s like I get to be my mom for just a minute.

Just recently I read that the fish they use for McDonald’s is endangered! Geez, there goes my last connection to my innocent food past, when none of us knew what was in a piece of white bread, none of us cared about cholesterol, nobody suspected that there were chemicals in our food. The blindfolds have been torn, no, ripped off my face and I have seen the Whole Food Truth. And though I wish I could just digest it and live it simply, like the song “Jesus loves me, this I know,” I have often told my husband that I feel like I am living like a food fundamentalist- where some foods wear smiley face buttons and others wear skulls and crossbones. I know in my heart that this food we grow and eat and select is wholesome and rewarding and will probably keep me from great physical harm.

But, when Kira announced that she wanted two, plain, glazed Krispy Kreme donuts for breakfast on her birthday, John said “All Right!” And I thought “Oh, Yeah!” I guess it’s true that one gal’s grease is another gal’s grace. Amen, Alleluia.

I’ll say two Hail Marys and drink a glass of lemon water in the morning.