September 17, 2025 “I like a protein shake a lot more if I turn it into ice cream.” I told a friend that as we were discussing my love of a kitchen appliance that turns frozen containers of food into ice cream, frozen yogurt, smoothies or sorbet. While some protein shakes are better than others, I have yet to find one that tastes so good I’d be happy to incorporate it into my standard drink rotation even if it weren’t helping me meet my nutrition goals. I never look forward to a protein shake. Do you know what I look forward to and love to incorporate into my daily routine? Ice cream. With my beloved kitchen gadget, I add a few ingredients to my favorite protein powder, I freeze it, and I turn it into ice cream. Suddenly, I find it easy to hit my protein goals, and I look forward to my protein shakes. I even make a protein shake ice cream that doubles as overnight oats, and I eat cinnamon-sugar-oatmeal ice cream for breakfast almost every morning. Turning a protein shake into ice cream makes it more palatable to me. It takes away or reduces the impact of some of the aspects of protein shakes I don’t like – texture, for example (many protein powders are chalky and/or the powders don’t dissolve well). As I stood waiting for my post-workout ice cream (chocolate protein powder with peanut butter powder, cocoa powder and sweetener), I was thinking about that part of human nature that makes us want to make everything exactly the way we want it. We want everything palatable to us. It struck me that I do it in my faith life, too. There are teachings of our Catholic faith that I struggle to accept. While I sometimes dive in and pray about those teachings, read books about those teachings, try to wrap my head around those teachings, there are as many times, honestly probably more times, in which I just completely ignore those teachings, and I construct a version of Catholicism for myself that doesn’t include those teachings, a version I find more palatable. There are times when I’m struggling with a particular sin, a sin I know God wants to help me overcome, and I convince myself instead to accept and continue with the sin because, “it’s not as bad as what others are doing, and I’m a good person in the big picture.” I even make sin more palatable. Christian living is not easy. It’s not supposed to be easy. I want to make it easy, though. I think God is calling me to sit with Him and consider that tendency. Getting ice cream would be way easier, but following God’s call has an even bigger reward. |
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