One difference between Maria and me is that when I make a vegetable snack, I chop up some vegetables, throw them onto a paper towel, bring them into my study, and eat them.

In support of my new successful healthy eating program, Maria sometimes offers to make me what she calls a “vegetable snack.” She lines up some vegetables and chops them into different sizes (paying close attention to colors).

She then puts them into the refrigerator. I am always surprised to see them; they look like vegetable art and are carefully cut and organized according to color and size. I usually work from front to back.

She does it so quickly and intuitively that I am always taken aback when I go and look for them, It would take me an hour to do that, and it wouldn’t look as good.

Being married to an artist has many unexpected benefits. Everything really looks good, even snacks.

These “snacks” are beneficial to me. I can eat as much of them as I want, they fill up my stomach between meals, and I have come to find them refreshing and very good to eat. Vegetables are no longer something I eat grudgingly, and I think they are delicious in protest.

And I can feel how healthy it has been for me to turn them into a primary snack to fend off hunger because I am eating so much less food.

I sometimes had to eat these vegetable snacks; I felt like I was vandalizing art.   But I manage to get over that.