Kim (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
grammarwoman) wrote2007-06-13 03:55 pm
grammarwoman) wrote2007-06-13 03:55 pm
Food for thought
Unraveling my thoughts about food has taken me down a long and twisty path. At the heart of it all, I blame the Great Depression.
My parents were both raised in households of children of the Depression. Their parents saved everything, knew the value of a dollar, and never wasted food. Waste, in general, was a sin. (German Protestant upbringing, can you tell?) Between that, and the damned Clean Plate Club, (thanks for nothing, Truman!), I have some weird, ingrained ideas about food.
For one, if I put something on my plate, I need to eat it, or at least save it for later. I’ve been known to get doggie-bags for ridiculously small portions. If I can’t save it, then I’ll finish it, even if I’m well past satisfied and into overstuffed, because, again, wasting food is Bad, Sinful or even Evil. Plus, what if I’m famished again later, either between meals or dinner and bedtime? If I eat it all now, then I’ll put off being hungry that much longer.
Even more bizarrely, this also applies to things left on the husband or kid’s plate, or even in the serving dish. If it’s something less than a portion, I find myself compelled to finish it. A portion or more will wind up in the fridge for a later lunch (most of the time, at least). It’s practically a psychosis that, if I dump some piece of consumable food in the garbage, I’ll get in trouble somehow. I need to convince myself that I’m not doing myself any favors by being a human vacuum cleaner, and that I’m not going to Hell for throwing away food.
It doesn’t help that I exhibit all the symptoms of being a carbohydrate addict. If I gave into my urgings, I could eat an entire bowl of plain pasta, straight from the pot, and be hungrier when I finished than when I started. I’ve had moderate success in the past with following a low-carb diet, but it’s both hard and expensive to base all my meals around protein and fiber with minimum amounts of carbs. Add to that that the Emperor and my husband prefer starchy meals, and I’m looking at a lot of work to find one meal that we can all enjoy.
It seems so damned simple, to pay attention to my fullness level and not to childhood conditioning. I wonder if the current obesity crisis is linked in some part from other people having the same background. How many others are compelled to clean their plates? Do they have edicts like “There’s children starving in [foreign country X], so finish your food!” running in the back of their heads?
My goal is to take smaller portions, and not clean up the other plates after dinner. Maybe I’ll even talk myself into throwing away the leftover bits. It’s going to be hard. *sigh*
My parents were both raised in households of children of the Depression. Their parents saved everything, knew the value of a dollar, and never wasted food. Waste, in general, was a sin. (German Protestant upbringing, can you tell?) Between that, and the damned Clean Plate Club, (thanks for nothing, Truman!), I have some weird, ingrained ideas about food.
For one, if I put something on my plate, I need to eat it, or at least save it for later. I’ve been known to get doggie-bags for ridiculously small portions. If I can’t save it, then I’ll finish it, even if I’m well past satisfied and into overstuffed, because, again, wasting food is Bad, Sinful or even Evil. Plus, what if I’m famished again later, either between meals or dinner and bedtime? If I eat it all now, then I’ll put off being hungry that much longer.
Even more bizarrely, this also applies to things left on the husband or kid’s plate, or even in the serving dish. If it’s something less than a portion, I find myself compelled to finish it. A portion or more will wind up in the fridge for a later lunch (most of the time, at least). It’s practically a psychosis that, if I dump some piece of consumable food in the garbage, I’ll get in trouble somehow. I need to convince myself that I’m not doing myself any favors by being a human vacuum cleaner, and that I’m not going to Hell for throwing away food.
It doesn’t help that I exhibit all the symptoms of being a carbohydrate addict. If I gave into my urgings, I could eat an entire bowl of plain pasta, straight from the pot, and be hungrier when I finished than when I started. I’ve had moderate success in the past with following a low-carb diet, but it’s both hard and expensive to base all my meals around protein and fiber with minimum amounts of carbs. Add to that that the Emperor and my husband prefer starchy meals, and I’m looking at a lot of work to find one meal that we can all enjoy.
It seems so damned simple, to pay attention to my fullness level and not to childhood conditioning. I wonder if the current obesity crisis is linked in some part from other people having the same background. How many others are compelled to clean their plates? Do they have edicts like “There’s children starving in [foreign country X], so finish your food!” running in the back of their heads?
My goal is to take smaller portions, and not clean up the other plates after dinner. Maybe I’ll even talk myself into throwing away the leftover bits. It’s going to be hard. *sigh*
no subject
When I start off my meals with salads, fruits, and other bulky fiber foodstuffs, I do a much better job at stopping when I'm full.
no subject
Thanks for the reminder.