12.4 Food Intake at Age 75

My lunch is usu­al­ly a cup of co­coa and a ba­nana sand­wich. Oc­ca­sion­al­ly I will eat lunch at Sub­way. I get a foot long Veg­gie Delite with wheat bread, no cheese, and all the veg­e­ta­tion ex­cept pick­les, jalapenos, and ba­nana pep­pers.

A ba­nana sand­wich may seem like an ec­cen­tric choice for lunch. The his­to­ry of this goes back to the Se­cond World War. I was born in 1938, just be­fore the war start­ed. Food was scarce dur­ing the war. I al­ways got enough to keep me healthy, but the va­ri­ety was scant. After the war, trade restart­ed and more foods be­came avail­able.

When I was sev­en or eight I had my first ba­nana. I had nev­er tast­ed any­thing like it be­fore. It was love at first bite. Un­like oth­er foods of child­hood, I nev­er lost my taste for ba­nanas.

The va­ri­ety in my diet comes main­ly from din­ner. Both Mary Ann and I cook and we have a wide range of recipes. My din­ners are most­ly veg­e­tar­i­an, sal­ads, or based on shell­fish or turkey sausage. Mary Ann’s are chick­en, pork ten­der­loin, sal­ads, and fish. We drink wa­ter with din­ner.

My late night snack is var­ied. Usu­al­ly it in­cludes ei­ther fat free choco­late pud­ding or yo­gurt. There is also one or two serv­ings of fruit. In sea­son, I will have cher­ries on most nights. Other nights I might have a pear, a plum, an or­ange or some grapes. I may have three prunes in­stead of, or as well as, the oth­er fruit.

My al­co­hol in­take is usu­al­ly a care­ful­ly mea­sured 6.4 fl. oz. of red wine. On so­cial oc­ca­sions, or when I eat out, I may have a light beer also.

If my weight is start­ing to creep up, I am care­ful to keep my din­ner por­tion to its prop­er size, and I give up one of my late night fruit snacks. This, and be­ing ex­tra rig­or­ous with my ex­er­cise pro­gram, is all I need to get rid of the ex­cess two or three pounds.