Sunday Quote 📑
This is a quote I have in my favorites simply so that I get the reminder frequently.
In another of his books (Food Rules) Pollan also says:
The banquet is in the first bite
and
No other bite will taste as good as the first, and every subsequent bite will progressively diminish in satisfaction.
and
...as you go on, you’ll be getting more calories, but not necessarily more pleasure.
In many attentive eating paradigms (the works of Michael Pollan, mindful eating, intuitive eating, Naturally Slim, etc.), there is a focus on really paying attention to and enjoying what we are eating.
Part of the unhealthy habits many of us have learned around food contribute to food moving from something to savor to something to consume. Like other parts of consumer culture, we look for the latest "advances", the best bang-for-our-buck, the quickest thing, the most popular thing, the best advertised thing, or the super-utilitarian-just-get-the-nutrients-in-me thing.
Whichever of these we drift towards, our relationship with food moves away from thinking of food as something to enjoy in-and-of-itself, shifts away from cultural food traditions (with all their accumulated wisdom), and shifts away from (non-performative) eating with our community.
This reminder, then, is a simple call back to paying attention to what is being eaten.
Take a small bite.
How does it smell?
How does it feel?
How does it taste?
Does it change as I chew or as it lingers in my mouth?
Following this paradigm, a few things happen:
- I enjoy my food much more
- I'm amazed how the tiniest of bites can give as much (or more) satisfaction as a large one
- I realize that after more than a few bites of anything, I'm not enjoying anymore, but merely consuming
- I realize my fullness much more quickly
- I can eat my foods in any order I want, because I won't overdue it with anything on my plate, but know I will move on once I am no longer enjoying that item
Now, there is one big exception to this "intuitive" approach to eating. Some of these programs handle it, others may not.
SUGAR is basically a drug.
Sugar makes us more hungry. Seriously. Because of the way fructose and glucose work in the body, having sugar (and even simple carbs, which are effectively glucose) causes our bodies to store fat and ramp up our appetite. So, "intuition" gets short-circuited by our biological processes.
Pollan has lots of advice to help avoid this trap. Naturally Slim advocates cutting sugar. I'm not sure if Intuitive Eating handles it. (email me if you know?)
Because I used a Pollan quote related to dessert, let me pair it with these other practices from Food Rules, in order to present the more-complete picture. Bold is Pollan's wording, italics are my comments.
- 4 Avoid food products that contain high-fructose corn syrup.
- 5 Avoid foods that have some form of sugar (or sweetener) listed among the top three ingredients.
- 35 Eat sweet foods as you find them in nature. (e.g. whole fruit with fiber)
- 37 “The whiter the bread, the sooner you’ll be dead.”
- 39 Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself. (e.g. if you want pie, chips, or ice cream you gotta make it from the raw ingredients!)
In the week ahead, this is a good reminder for me to be mindful. To eat rather than consume. May it be helpful for you, as well.
tagged: @Eat
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-Todd
-Todd
Originally posted at Hey World
@frostedechoes Oops, you helped me realize I accidentally quoted from two different books in this post. Fixing. Let me think about that and get back to you. Are you more interested in the problems with the food ecosystem or some patterns you can adopt to help? That'll help me recommend better.
@frostedechoes So, I've read:
Thinking about this a bit more, I really think In Defense of Food is probably the best start. It combines history, how-to, etc. and he works through his famous slogan throughout the book ("Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants."). The introduction is free online here, to get a taste.
I am a long way from “there”, but I’ve also come a stretch from where I was. Down 18kg since 1/1-20. Still a long way to go though, and I really think this can help along the way.
I tend to eat too fast. I know that it takes approximately 20 minutes for the feeling of fullness to occur, so eating slower and savoring the food will both keep you from overeating, and make you appreciate the food more.
That is not a good rule in my experience, because they use a lot of syrup in some breads to make them darker, hence appearing healthier, when they’re really not.
In Norway we have something called the “bread scale”, which makes all producers rate their bread with a pie chart of ¼ - 1/1 from finest to wholemeal bread.
@frostedechoes these stylized quotes are courtesy of Readwise.io
@frostedechoes on the GI front I understand there is a desire to limit inflammation (reducing FODMAPs often helps) while also getting fermented foods and healthy probiotics. I don't know the best source on practices here (as I understand there is a tradeoff where you only want to ramp up the prebiotic material once you are feeling better about not having leaky gut). There was a chunk of advice in The End of Alzheimer’s but I admit I didn’t pay as close attention in those sections.
@odd good point about syrups. Is bread the scale useful, or is it “gamed” by untrustworthy players.
It is somewhat helpful, but if the bread is 51% whole meal it counts as ¾ the same as if its 74%, still ¾, so yes, there have been examples where consumer report programs have had tests, (in cooperation with the Norwegian equivalent of the FDA), and found this. But I don’t think they found false claims among them.