Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 118: Allison

Prompt: "A song about a banana... yes, we're doing this prompt again! Fuck all the haters! If I want to hear songs about bananas I'm gonna make my friends and family pick songs about bananas, goddamn it!!!"

Selected by Allison

"Apples and Bananas"

Raffi

One Light, One Sun, 1985

"If you're hungry, eat an apple" was my mother's reply to any request for a snack between mealtimes. Can I tell you how often I am actually hungry for an apple? Maybe five times a year. Only during late September / early October, when the apples are worth eating. Am I standing in an orchard? Fine, I'll eat an apple. Otherwise, apples languish in my crisper. Fuck an apple.

Diet culture is a racket and a scam, and participating in it again after years of deprogramming is a goddamn bummer. I spent so much time in my teens and twenties lying to myself that I liked eating a certain way and preferred eating a certain way when I was starving. Trying to convince myself that these substitutions were a one-and-done thing. I could make these changes, make the better choices, and that would be it. "Actually, I like zoodles more than actual pasta. I know, right? Crazy..."

Now I realize that these "healthy choices" are additions, not substitutions, and they have become easier to stomach. Spaghetti squash is good, but it's not spaghetti. Tofu is good, but it's not meat. Baby carrots are good, but they're not chips. Stop lying. Eat the baby carrots, but eat the chips, too. Rice cakes are good when you add something better. Peanut butter, jam, cheese, butter (seriously, put butter on a rice cake). Does this defeat the purpose of the rice cake? Does this sully the integrity of the rice cake? Fuck all the way off. 

I'm just trying to live my life. Now I get dystopian Google recommendations for word jumble recipes like "90-second Keto Cottage Cheese Pumpkin English Muffin" and targeted ads for "Thai Tea Boba Protein Powder." Please, I'll eat the apples, I'll eat the bananas, just let me live.