It occurred to me today, as I was desperately trying to finish my spinach salad that cost me ten bucks, that it must be close to impossible to overeat whole, natural foods. Could you imagine sitting down and just chowing an entire bag of jumbo carrots or a basket of apples, or a bucket of greens? No way! Our bodies have these natural cues when we eat real foods that tell us we are sick of chewing, or full in our bellies, or at that point that we could not take one more bite of the spinach flavor or we'll explode!
Many people have said that the true way to eat without overeating is to eat until the flavor is completely gone, or until it starts to taste bitter or strange. Our bodies have a natural tendency to "turn off" the pleasure signals when it is sated. But I don't think this works with junk foods. First of all, so many of them are saturated with sodium, sugars and fats and the flavor itself is an artificial invention that is made to continuously supply a flavor, so in effect we trick our bodies into believing we are still hungry. Think about that, it's the same principle as putting nicotine into cigarettes or cocaine in the original Cokes - artificial flavors are just another ingredient put into junk to keep us addicted to that particular product. This isn't so far fetched, anyone who has eaten Cheetos or Doritos or Lays - "betcha just can't have one" know exactly what I'm talking about. That specific, strange, unnatural flavor coats your taste buds and haunts you. Then you get to thinking you just want more because it leaves that really weird aftertaste and your body wants that first bite back. Before you know it, the bag is gone!!!!!!
To avoid this battle all together, we just need to stop eating so much drug food, crap, junk, stuff and remember that our bodies are meant for food; real, wholesome actual food. We can eat however much we want of this stuff and never feel bad or sick because it is impossible to take in too much. We are set up to stop, our body recognizes the food and assimilates it. We are in perfect communication with our selves.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Hunger
I think that we are vastly mistaken in eating when we are hungry. Hunger is a feeling from the body that alerts us of a need for nourishment. But we are nourished from so many things besides food. Sometimes I hunger for sleep, touch, love, alone time, a better job, more space, clean air, a good time. And yet, it seems that every time I feel hungry I don't ask my self, what is it that you need. We were asked this weekend in class to ask our bodies in the most loving way, what we could do for it to give us the best energy and love ever. I think feeding your body what it REALLY needs when hungry is a start. Next time, ask your self, what is it I am really hungry for and how can I make that. I think we often resort to food because even when we know the answer to the question, we feel we lack the means to arrive at the true meal. If we live our lives this way we become under-nourished and starve. Isn't it funny that we say to be courageous "takes guts". Because in the end, isn't that what we honor when we truly listen to our selves and our hunger, and then truly respond to that hunger? It really does take guts to be well.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
The long expected truth...
As I was sitting here today, taking in information and feeling. Crying, thinking, hoping, wanting and suddenly hungry, it occured to me that the stories we make for our selves not only guide us in how we live our lives but also how we eat and what we eat. Our foods create our bodies and these vessels become the way through which we interact our souls with the material world. But if our stories guide our food which make our bodies, then who we seem to be to the world will only literally be a figment of the imagination. After all, that is all a story is right? So I thought to myself, what is my story with food and how does it shape me today?
To start, I grew up in an Italian-American family in the restaurant business. For me food WAS life. Together with my mother's large Polish-Italo-American family and my father's carefully knit immigrant family, food was always the convergence point. Food was the place where we all came together and met, it bonded us, it gave us tradition, it filled us beyond any physical capactiy. Indeed we always cooked enough to feed an army and in a way, in our breaking bread, we were an army together. Our dinner parties and gatherings brought us such strength that nothing could stop us, or break us, and yet, many things did.
Aside from pulling my life together, food had an uncanny way of pulling us apart. The resaurant business is so much more than food, it is food taken out and made vulnerable because in serving it, you invite others to take part in actualizing their own food stories in one space. In a way, when you eat in public you make your self vulnerable, you share a very personal, intimate experience with total strangers in plain site and by making this the means by which you make a living, this vulnerability can lead to many possible outcomes. In the case of my parents, this lead to a disconnect in their relationship, communication and marriage. Somewhere between the salad and dessert, the water and wine, other people's stories became entangled in their own and the personal, protected, promised unit of two began to break down.
So for me food is a source of bringing together and pulling apart. To me, the act of cooking and eating is almost a magical play of power and control, of bringing together people who may otherwise never talk or of isolating myself from others I feel I would not have a voice or be heard with. But then again, this is just a story, based on a story. The actual stories, the happenings of our lives will never change, CAN never change. They happened, they are real, they are valid, they are past. But the myths and fiction we make up about them are the continuous act of creation and imagination. It is the mind making itself up at every moment. But we are not mind creatures, we are not only a head, and food is not meant for thought.
To truly nourish our bodies and understand our bodies, I think we need to look first at the facts and fictions that surround our power struggles with our world and our diet and our lifestyle choices. If it is true that the oracle of Delphi quoted to Socrates that the one ultimate virtue was to "Know Thyself" and if also it is true that we are what we eat, then to truly get a grip on what we are, thyself, we must look at what we eat as part of that. And if our food choices are guided simply by ideas we create about our selves and the world based on little stories, than we are nothing more than a figment of our own imagination. What then will it take to wake up, show up, be present and powerful in the real world. Where are we most of the time? I do know it certainly is not at the bottom of a sea salt and vinegar chip bag! In the end, isn't that why we peer down an empty bag of chips or look in the can of coke when we know we've finished it, or open the refridgerator for no good reason at all. What we really needed and wanted wasn't ever there, but somehow we got tricked into the process of looking anyway... Every time.
To start, I grew up in an Italian-American family in the restaurant business. For me food WAS life. Together with my mother's large Polish-Italo-American family and my father's carefully knit immigrant family, food was always the convergence point. Food was the place where we all came together and met, it bonded us, it gave us tradition, it filled us beyond any physical capactiy. Indeed we always cooked enough to feed an army and in a way, in our breaking bread, we were an army together. Our dinner parties and gatherings brought us such strength that nothing could stop us, or break us, and yet, many things did.
Aside from pulling my life together, food had an uncanny way of pulling us apart. The resaurant business is so much more than food, it is food taken out and made vulnerable because in serving it, you invite others to take part in actualizing their own food stories in one space. In a way, when you eat in public you make your self vulnerable, you share a very personal, intimate experience with total strangers in plain site and by making this the means by which you make a living, this vulnerability can lead to many possible outcomes. In the case of my parents, this lead to a disconnect in their relationship, communication and marriage. Somewhere between the salad and dessert, the water and wine, other people's stories became entangled in their own and the personal, protected, promised unit of two began to break down.
So for me food is a source of bringing together and pulling apart. To me, the act of cooking and eating is almost a magical play of power and control, of bringing together people who may otherwise never talk or of isolating myself from others I feel I would not have a voice or be heard with. But then again, this is just a story, based on a story. The actual stories, the happenings of our lives will never change, CAN never change. They happened, they are real, they are valid, they are past. But the myths and fiction we make up about them are the continuous act of creation and imagination. It is the mind making itself up at every moment. But we are not mind creatures, we are not only a head, and food is not meant for thought.
To truly nourish our bodies and understand our bodies, I think we need to look first at the facts and fictions that surround our power struggles with our world and our diet and our lifestyle choices. If it is true that the oracle of Delphi quoted to Socrates that the one ultimate virtue was to "Know Thyself" and if also it is true that we are what we eat, then to truly get a grip on what we are, thyself, we must look at what we eat as part of that. And if our food choices are guided simply by ideas we create about our selves and the world based on little stories, than we are nothing more than a figment of our own imagination. What then will it take to wake up, show up, be present and powerful in the real world. Where are we most of the time? I do know it certainly is not at the bottom of a sea salt and vinegar chip bag! In the end, isn't that why we peer down an empty bag of chips or look in the can of coke when we know we've finished it, or open the refridgerator for no good reason at all. What we really needed and wanted wasn't ever there, but somehow we got tricked into the process of looking anyway... Every time.
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