Pepperoni vs. Turkey Pepperoni

I think I have to trade in my (half) Italian-American card.

  

I have found I like turkey pepperoni better than regular pepperoni.

I am a snacker, I like having easy foods in the house for me to nosh on through out the day, it also is great for my two kids who, though both in the 25th%ile for height and weight, love to eat.  They can eat us out of house and home a few days after grocery shopping.  Turkey pepperoni is one of my go-to snack items when I am grocery shopping because we all love it, even Rex (have you ever seen a 70 lb boxer try to muzzle out the last pepperoni from a bag, it's instant comedy).  I choose turkey pepperoni because it has significantly less fat than it's counterpart and since this is a regular snack in our house, I try to choose healthy, well, as healthy as processed meats go.

Two weeks ago, on the day my parents arrived from the frigid tundra (aka Pocono mountains) I grabbed Lil and we went to Publix to load up on all the good Italian treats I grew up eating, like cold cuts (lunch meat), fresh mozzarella, olives, roasted peppers, italian bread, pepperoni and even soppresata (a hard Italian sausage).  I swear Publix is the grocery store for displaced New Yorkers below the Mason-Dixon line because only there I can find pretty much all the yummy foods I grew up with.

Anyways, yesterday I was in an especially hungry mood and I still had some left over pepperoni from my parent's visit along with a bag of turkey pepperoni disks. I grabbed both knowing the vultures would soon be descending and I took the kids outside to play on the swing set, trying to divert them from my pepperoni bounty.  I first ate a few pieces of the regular pepperoni, and while it's tasty, I realized I missed the meaty texture of the turkey pepperoni.  The taste was there, but the pepperoni was greasy, something my turkey pepperoni trained taste buds were not used to.  I fed the last few pieces to the dog, praying that this wouldn't result in room clearing gas later in the day and then I started on the turkey pepperoni.  The turkey pepperoni was everything I learned to expect in pepperoni, spicy, slightly chewy and 70% less fat.

 I had found an alternative to a high fat food item and now regular pepperoni had become a lesser alternative to the turkey pepperoni thus reversing roles.  I questioned what this meant to my Italian-ess but I didn't care, I know what I like and I like turkey pepperoni more.  My arteries will be thanking me one day...