Spork or Die

If you’re looking for a way to improve your health today, there are countless posts on this site that will serve your purpose. This isn’t one of them. However, if you’re in search of a more efficient and pleasurable way to eat eggs, salads and more, keep reading. Let’s welcome the most under-appreciated utensil in the drawer, the spork.

Here’s a challenge that I often face when eating my giant, beautifully constructed salads. I’ve worked my way down to the end of the meal, and I’m nearly satisfied. I’ve stabbed at the greens, the chicken, the cauliflower and the jicama. Everything is just peachy, except my plate has tiny specs of quinoa still perfectly dressed with hummus and a few small blue cheese crumbles here and there. Will I let them go to waste? Of course not. Now I have to get up to grab a spoon, interrupting my flow, or I lick the plate.

Eggs and mushrooms? You want to stab the ‘shrooms and scoop the eggs. Even if you eat your huevos over medium and sans veggies, you can’t get all that delicious runny yolk with a fork and the slippery white will likely slide right off your spoon.

Why have we not embraced the spork as a society?

Change to one’s routine is among life’s scariest actions. The comfort zone is cushy and the idea that it can be improved isn’t easily embraced. I say, surrender to the spork. From psychotherapist Sylvia Boorstein:

We can struggle, or we can surrender. Surrender is a frightening word for some people, because it might be interpreted as passivity, or timidity. Surrender means wisely accommodating ourselves to what is beyond our control. Getting old, getting sick, dying, losing what is dear to us…is beyond our control. I can either be frightened of life and mad at life—or not. I can be disappointed and still not be mad.

See? Dying is beyond your control. What is within your control, however, is the type of tool you select. Just like with your other utensils, no flimsy and shoddily designed poser will add to your dining experience. You want to spend a sheckel or two extra and purchase the model that’s built to last. I won’t endorse a brand, per se, but I use this one. Feel free to find your own titanium build. The spork is akin to art. What is lovely in my home may not work in yours.

Who wants to drop ten bucks on an eating utensil, you ask? I don’t blame you. But surely you’ll spend a buck or two extra on grub to have a quality dining experience. If your pleasure is incrementally enhanced over the course of your lifetime, you won’t remember the extra cost. Just to put your mind at ease though, I did the math.

If you spread the cost out over your next 995 meals, it will cost you a cent per. To be able to pick up your plate’s last bits, this is a bargain.

Spork or die,

Kap