The photo du jour

Today's prompt was "guilty pleasure," which was kind of difficult. I don't watch Hoarders or read romance novels, two ideas that came immediately to mind. I don't, in general, feel much guilt about anything I do or say unless I need to. I sometimes lose my temper and snap at my husband unnecessarily. He gets the snap because he's in the line of fire, and I do feel guilty about that. I apologize and we move on. (He's extraordinarily good at accepting an apology.)

I expect to see lots of food photos to fulfill today's prompt, and I might have reposted the one of a McDonald's iced coffee I shot several weeks ago. That prompt was "favorite," but I captioned it as a "favorite guilty pleasure." The guilt comes from buying something at McDonald's more than from drinking an iced coffee. With cream. And sugar-free vanilla syrup.

I'm trying not to attach feelings to food. I'm not restricting or eliminating any foods from my "diet." If I want a treat, I work it into the daily calorie allotment, and that has included ice cream, guacamole and dark chocolate.

Some foods aren't worth the calories. I haven't had a pretzel or a potato chip in months (which might be more a function of my dental issues than my appetite, however). A hot dog on a bun is a lot of calories for very little satisfaction, but I certainly don't feel guilty eating one. Just still hungry when I've finished.

All that said, I still needed to come up with a guilty-pleasure subject for today. So here it is:

The guilty part comes from the saltine more than the butter. I have NO PROBLEM eating real butter, no matter which government agency or nationally known health guru says it's full of cholesterol and bad for my arteries. Butter is one of the few real packaged foods left in the modern market. The ingredients are cream and salt. Sometimes I even make my own butter.

I cook from scratch 99 percent of the time, using ingredients, not products. If a recipe calls for salsa, for instance, I grab a jar from the pantry that I made and canned last summer. I know what's in there. I read labels on the products I buy and very few items in my pantry have unpronounceable components.

Except for the saltines.

Enriched Flour (Wheat Flour, Barley Malt, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, Whole Wheat Flour, Vegetable Shortening (Cottonseed Oil, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Citric Acid, TBHQ [Antioxidant]), High Fructose Corn Syrup, Yeast, Sodium Bicarbonate, Salt, Caramel Color, Monocalcium Phosphate, Ammonium Sulfate, Calcium Sulfate, Whey, Enzymes.

Even the dreaded HFCS is included in the list of ingredients.

So there you have it. My guilty pleasure is … a cracker. I'm such a badass when it comes to guilt.