shmexpired

I accidentally ate expired applesauce today, which I find especially hilarious considering the topic of my last post.

It was one of those little plastic cups, and I had only eaten about half of that when I noticed the old date. So it was basically two or three spoonfuls. But I went into a panic anyway, and I didn't handle it well at all. I was too fixated on the knowledge that an actual thing had happened to trigger this panic. That usually isn't the case. And it made me give way too much weight to it.

I kept thinking about how if something bad was going to happen because of this, there was nothing I could do about it now. I swallowed the food and it was gone, and I couldn't reach in and get it out again. That's a very obvious statement, but I was thinking "why? how is it possible that there isn't some way to take it back?" and it seemed bizarre and unfair that food would just disappear into me like I was a black hole but still be able to have whatever effect it was going to have on me.

I did some unhelpful googling (the people who post asking if it's okay that they just ate expired food never actually return to say what ended up happening) until I could get in touch with my wife at work. She gave me a long speech about how it was completely fine. I started crying from relief, which then turned into frustrated crying because seriously? I can't believe something so silly and small will be so disruptive to my day. This phobia makes me feel like an idiot. Or a child. In fact, I remember as a child freaking out on my family or baby-sitters and asking them to reassure me about food anxiety. And it's still happening.

I feel like I should know these things by now. I should have a better understanding of food in general. I think I have never bothered to learn the truth (or common sense) when it comes to some topics, food safety being one of them, because long ago I came to my own irrational conclusions and invented my own rules to keep myself safe. And these conclusions/rules aren't like normal facts that can change when confronted with contradictory evidence. If I didn't keep reminding myself, I feel pretty certain I would forget this ever happened within a couple years and it could happen again exactly the same as it did today. Because my mind wants to shove this out and go back to the simpler more ingrained rule of "any food past its expiration date will make you sick."

Not true, not true, not true. Must remember this.