It was brought to our attention at The East Texan that a recent editorial series written by James Bright, about his journey to womanhood, was a little one-sided. In order to be more objective and less discriminatory, I have decided to embark on a little venture of my own. First, a caveat, I am well aware that not all guys are the same, but I will be stereotyping men in my approach to this experiment.
This week’s task: eating like a man. The idea of indulging in every craving that crosses the mind should sound appealing; however, as a conscious eater and girl, I was dreading the day. Not knowing if I could properly assess what kinds of foods the typical dude craves, two guys were eager to text me their diet daydreams throughout the day. It was my job to then eat, eat quickly, and without a care as to what kind of empty calories were going to wreck my stomach.
I started around midnight when I suddenly awoke with great hunger pangs. Instead of rolling over and dreaming about food, which is pretty common for me, I plodded downstairs to the vending machines. I was really longing for a donut, but was forced to settle on some Chili Cheese Fritos. I started munching, staring at the vending machine like it was a new form of entertainment.
Then my thirst set in, so I got a Dr. Pepper. While trying to satisfy a chocolate craving, my tiredness and misunderstanding of the labeling system caused me to get some sort of nasty peanut bar on accident. I went for some Hot Tamales, and by that time, I had already run out of the rest of the money on my Lion Card.
I scooped up my winnings and rushed for the elevator, hoping I wouldn’t catch any disapproving stares. Really getting into character, I spent the next half hour watching “Most Daring Campus Chaos” and trying not to feel bad for pigging out.
The next morning, I was all prepared to pile my breakfast food into a heap and dig in, only stopping to grunt if I was asked a question. My “Commerce Mash-up,” or food-trough, had a setback. There wasn’t enough food in the cafeteria to make one, and if that wasn’t enough, no chocolate milk.
I got my first text of the day after finishing off a waffle. It read “Hello miss rush its james why don’t u have a can of soda and two fun sized snicker bars.” I was trying to get around the extra calories with a Diet Wild Cherry Pepsi and chocolate animal crackers, but it was soon replaced with a classic Coca-Cola, because guys don’t diet.
My next setback was at lunch, when the kindest, sweetest, card-swiping lady that ever existed was forced to let me know that I had run out of meals. Dejected, I knew this little experiment had just gotten tougher. So lunch consisted of a hamburger and fries from the McDonald’s dollar menu and an extra crispy KitKat, since all the guys around me in the radio studio where eating one.
I stopped by Taco Bell at dinnertime for a spicy chicken burrito, but it was determined to be a pitiful excuse for a meal by my recently acquired food coach. I was encouraged to find curry or Indian food. At Brookshire’s I ended up asking a manager for said Indian food in front of a few Indian students, who I am hoping are not offended by my pathetic attempt to satisfy a craving.
The manager was also confused and took me to an aisle with Thai food, which is as close as I was going to get unless I just wanted to knock on doors over in West Halls. I also picked up the tiniest ice-cream container possible to qualify for a craving that was texted to me by a different guy.
That’s not to say I didn’t learn anything from this experience. I figured out that the majority of cravings are visually stimulated, meaning you don’t even know you want to eat a bite of something until you see it. This was an interesting lesson at the grocery store, where my cravings changed depending on the aisle I was walking down.
My final opinion: don’t eat like a guy, unless you can put aside a girl’s guilt.