Amy Lu's View

Last night I posted one of my more popular Facebook posts:

Chad to me, “I don’t think I have the same relationship to salad that you do.”

Now I am hardly a social media influencer so “popular” is relative, but this post received more “likes” and comments than my posts usually do (Yay for qualified successes!) so I feel I should set the record straight: NO ONE has the same relationship to salad that I do. Or at least no one I know or can imagine knowing.

A paraphrased rendition of our conversation that led up to the famous/infamous Chad salad quote:

• Me: Aren’t you excited I got our most favorite salad dressing?
• Chad: What?
• Me: You know, the ginger sesame dressing. You can only get that at Cub.
• Chad: What?
• Me: Don’t you like that? I thought you liked that…
• Chad: Sure, I like that, but I don’t think I have the same relationship to salad that you do.

It’s not just that I like or love or even need salad. It’s beyond preferences and feelings. As Chad so uniquely and humorously describes (in a way I never would have thought to) I DO have a relationship to salad. And like all relationships it’s time-consuming and filled with emotional nuances.

This was not always the case. Far from it. I didn’t even eat salad as a child and teenager (I barely ate vegetables beyond tomatoes and cucumbers) and disdained it, “cleverly” referring to it as “rabbit food.”

I only begrudgingly started eating salad in desperation as a funds-depeleted college exchange student in England. I often felt so food deprived (especially when going out to eat) I would consume whatever I could, even salad. Living in England planted the seeds of change, but the transformation from despising to needing salad was gradual. I definitely was not on Team Salad when Chamy began.

My love of salad is not motivated or sustained by health concerns or being a vegetarian. It comes down to two simple factors/beliefs:

1. I love eating.
2. Salad gives me the most eating “bang for the buck” as I can consume the most volume for the least amount of calories (as long as I am careful about dressing, cheese, avocado, nuts, grains, fruit, etc. As a result I am super picky about salads prepared at restuarants or by others. A Ceasar “salad” may be tasty but it does not fit my salad criteria.)

So just because Chad doesn’t have the same relationship to salad that I do, it does not mean he is anti-salad. He doesn’t necessarily seek it out, but he will consume it in moderation.

Now Chad not only doesn’t have the same relationship to salad that I have, he doesn’t have the same relationship to food (and we are probably both outliers on opposite ends of the spectrum). Not only do I love eating, I love spending as much time eating as possible.

Chad, on the other hand, resents the time and effort that eating requires on a daily basis (special occassions are an exception). He gets emotionally and even physically exhausted at times by eating.

Surprisingly, our different orientations to food actually works well for couplehood, perhaps even better than if we were more similarly matched. Or perhaps it’s most important we share the bond of weirdness when it comes to food. Our biggest challenge is that Chad has a touch of misophonia (aversion to the sound of eating) and salad-eating is a loud endeavor.  (I’ve learned to always have background noise on and/or not be too close to Chad when salad consumption is in process).

There’s a popular saying/meme “Alcohol–because no good story start with: ‘That one time I ate a salad.’ ” (Of course there are variations for specific types of alcohol). I’m clearly not opposed to alcohol, so I object to two of my loves being placed in a false dichotomy. It’s not alcohol OR salad. Or maybe if alcohol is the start of the story, salad is the prequel.