If you're a food addict like me, then you know how important it is to plan your menu and execute it.  I work in an elementary school and I only have 35 minutes in which to eat, check email, use the restroom, refresh my lipstick, phone a parent and make copies.  So when embarking on my new diet, I knew I had to go grocery shopping and actually make my salad all in the same day or risk having rotting mush in the drawers of my refrigerator. 

I also pack my salad in separate containers for the entire week and take them with me to school on Monday mornings.  If I don't, I will end up driving like a mad-man to the closest fast food restaurant, ordering a combo meal and inhaling it in the car on the way back to school!

Who knew when making these life changing habits, that it would be dangerous?  I nearly lost my thumb making salad this week!  (I swear I could have used a couple of stitches!  I'm still using two plastic bandages to cover up my salad wound!)  My boyfriend bought me a mandolin slicer and I absolutely love it!  I can chop and slice everything in less than half an hour (including my thumb), and it is one less excuse not to eat a healthy lunch everyday.  

Don't mandolin slicers have a safety attachment, you ask?  The answer is, yes. However, I had one smallish piece of apple to slice, totally not worth smashing on the end of the safety attachment, so I ran it through without the safety attachment and in the blink of an eye, added some thumb to my salad.  Lesson learned!  Now, I use the safety attachment every single time and just eat the smallish bits of veggies instead, it's far less dangerous!