Bougie Lettuce: When Healthy Eating Is Offensive

If you think maintaining a healthy lifestyle is hard on you, it can be more difficult for your family and friends โ€” just ask XOJane contributor Veronica-Marche Miller. After deciding to change her diet, her parents and roommate snubbed their noses at her every eating tweak because, she realized, her new meal plan offended their…

If you think maintaining a healthy lifestyle is hard on you, it can be more difficult for your family and friends โ€” just ask XOJane contributor Veronica-Marche Miller. After deciding to change her diet, her parents and roommate snubbed their noses at her every eating tweak because, she realized, her new meal plan offended their cultural codifiers.

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Lettuce became a point of contention.

There was the time my roomie needed to run to the grocery store to get lettuce for a salad.

โ€œI have mixed greens in the fridge!โ€ I offered, hoping to save her the car trip.

โ€œEw,โ€ she said, turning up her nose. โ€œI donโ€™t want your bougie salad.โ€ Bougie, as in bourgeois or high class, salad? Iceberg it was.

Then my parents came to visit.

โ€œWe need a head of lettuce for salad,โ€ my mom announced as she started making dinner.

โ€œNo we donโ€™t,โ€ I countered. โ€œI have salad greens in the fridge.โ€

โ€œOh,โ€ she said, turning up her nose. โ€œSo our salad isnโ€™t good enough for you now?โ€

โ€œNo! Iโ€ฆ I justโ€ฆ We already haveโ€ฆโ€ I stammered.

My roommate chimed in, โ€œI told her nobody wanted her bougie salad!โ€

Read Veronica Miller's entire piece atย XOJane.

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