Off/beat

Unleash tuna on childhood obesity

Last week Governor Bush expressed his concern about obesity in the state of Florida by appointing a special 14-member task force. Evidently this task force will be spending some time over the next few months looking at studies about behavioral risk factors and the like and making recommendations about how best to deal with the problem.

Word has it that kids are a priority for this task force. It announced a plan to tackle youth obesity by trimming the fat in school lunches, increasing physical education classes and possibly ridding the schools of those soda machines that actually help fund education here in Pasco County.

It's a good start - eat less fat, exercise more is sensible advice when it comes to keeping the pounds off.

But I know of a secret weapon that I think the task force should take a serious look at: tuna a la king.

I hadn't thought about it in years, but the dreaded family meal came up during a recent visit with my two older sisters.

It was during a trip down Memory Lane that we realized our beloved Boston Red Sox wasn't the only thing that made our stomachs churn.

Okay, so we still keep going back for more of the BoSox (it's tradition), but all three of us swore off tuna a la king years ago.

Up front, I have to tell you that my mother, God rest her soul, was a very good cook . . . most of the time.

Her recipes for German potato salad, spaghetti sauce, Yorkshire pudding and turkey stuffing are family favorites that I now cook for my own brood.

My mother was one of those Depression babies who learned early how to stretch a dollar. With seven mouths to feed on my father's salary, she had a knack for coming up with some very creative and sometimes gag-inducing meals.

I could handle the spaghetti sandwiches even if the kids made fun of me at school. I could even stomach that brown concoction that was served "on a shingle."

But tuna a la king, even with its fancy regal name, was the absolute worst.

I don't have the exact recipe because it was something I would never wish upon anyone, except maybe the Yankees. But if I remember correctly, the ingredients were canned tuna, sliced hard-boiled eggs, pimentos and some kind of white sauce ladled over a heap of mashed potatoes.

The potatoes were a saving grace, but in a household where the mottos were "you snooze, you lose" and "survival of the fittest," there was rarely enough to go around.

After doing a little research I have found others who have similar secret culinary weapons they could share with the governor's task force.

The thought of his mother's "Salmon Wiggle" still makes him want to hurl, but a friend who was one of 10 kids in a good Irish Catholic family names his mother's tuna casserole as a close second in the "worst meals known to man" category.

Except she never let on that it was tuna.

"None of us would eat fish - even tuna fish," he said. "So she'd tell us, "It's not fish, it's chicken.' " The Chicken of the Sea can propped up the lie.

It may have not been the intent, but these were the meals that had you grabbing for an extra helping of that healthy salad or sneaking an apple while professing, "I'm not really hungry," even while your stomach was growling.

What better way to knock off a few pounds?

My advice to the governor's task force?

Tuna a la king - serve it on up.

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