Food, inglorious food

We went to the theatre in Battersea after work on Wednesday, and not really knowing the area decided to eat out first at a restaurant we knew where I had a scrummy vegetable and couscous stuffed aubergine with yogurt in a tomato and onion broth. When we got to Battersea we found there were loads of cafés restaurants and takeaways lining Lavender Hill, and then on the way home as we passed through Victoria Station even more eateries, in fact most of the outlets there were selling food of some sort. It really came home to me just how surrounded we are with food for sale, and not the sort of food that you take home and cook, but all ready to eat, - sandwiches, pies, pastries, chocolate, cakes etc, wafting their sugary fatty aromas to passers by. How easy it is to be unthinkingly seduced by your own tastebuds into ‘treating yourself’ to a 500+ calorie snack that you don’t really need! No wonder such a high proportion of people are overweight. We have become so used now to just picking up food and eating it without a thought. Humankind developed in an environment where we hunted or gathered our food. It wasn’t easy to find, it wasn’t always there and it took some physical effort to get it. There were gaps of time where there was no food available. When there was a lot, we ate our fill, not knowing when the next meal would come. Nowadays people just thoughtlessly eat their fill, again and again.

On CR it takes some re-adjustment to know when to stop eating. I like April’s advice – eat when you are very hungry, stop when you are not hungry. And of course ‘not hungry’ happens way before you have a full stomach. I interpret it as a nice comfy feeling, which would be spoilt by over stretching my stomach. But what is ‘hungry’? Now this isn’t at all scientific, and indeed it is very personal to me, but I recognise three types of hunger. At the most extreme level, there is ‘body hunger’ which is to be avoided – I feel weak because I haven’t eaten enough. Funnily enough since CR I don’t get this as I am monitoring my nutrition and do a ‘little but often’ regime. In the past I mainly experienced it when researching in the British Library when I got so engrossed in what I was doing I forgot lunch! Then there is ‘stomach hunger’ – the signals from the tum telling me it is empty. That means it is time to eat, and when I do, even if it is something very light, I sense that nice grateful sensation of my body absorbing what it needs, (that is, of course, what it needs and no more) the way that water quenches a thirst. And finally, the vile seducer, ‘mouth hunger’ which is those naughty little tastebuds saying – ‘we want a treat’. That’s the one that leads people to overeat. All the satisfaction takes place in the mouth.

Many people overeat from boredom and stress. Stress is another issue, which I won’t comment on, as it is so complex and individual, but I do observe a lot of eating behaviour which is just for ‘something to do’ and it’s mainly snacking. On holiday last summer I saw a lot of our fellow travellers munching crisps and sweets as they went between locations, and having seen what they scoffed from the breakfast buffet I can be quite certain they weren’t hungry!

It’s easy to tell the difference between stomach and mouth hunger, and tell the latter to ‘get thee behind me’ – it can be diverted also, by the tingling of a sparkling mineral water, or the clean flavour of green tea. The other way of satisfying those tastebuds is to eat more slowly at meals, which I am trying to learn to do, so that I get more satisfying sensations from my food. The flavour of foods is intensified by CRON, in any case, which is a bonus, and that quarter glass of red wine I have with meals is taken in very small sips. I enjoy every one.