Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Wednesday morning roundup

Let's play compare and contrast: bipartisanship-in-health-care-reform edition.

This is fascinating to me because a couple of people, over the last few months, have alleged, directly and indirectly, that I have eating issues (I don't). My roommate was one of those people-- remember, when I said I wouldn't have dinner with him because I'd just bought a bunch of fresh food, he suggested and then repeated that going out to eat would get in the way of my "eating plan"? I can see how if you don't cook, any planning of food can appear to be some sort of strict eating schedule.

Not much later, someone other than roommate--someone who I would have hoped would know better, suggested that I seem to give too much thought to what I eat, for reasons of dieting. Now, I do give a lot of thought to what I eat, but I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think we, as a society, should give more thought to what we eat. You can't win with these people. There was a New Yorker cartoon a month or so ago that showed a guy saying something like, "I want a woman who's not afraid to gain a few pounds, but doesn't." As often with New Yorker cartoons, that one reflected a very real social phenomenon.

My eating habits/beliefs, for what it's worth, follow exactly what the Times article cites as healthy: think, don't obsess. When I overthink my food, it's usually from the perspective of sustainability. I would be lying if I said I give no thought whatsoever to weight gain, but it doesn't drive my eating-- I actually like natural, healthy food--but I do ask myself, before eating disproportionately energy-dense foods, whether they're worth it (for example, avocado-yes; really good chocolate cake-yes; store-bought cocktail sauce with 16g of sugar per tablespoon, as found in my mom's house-no). And it's really unfortunate that some people (usually men) would choose to interpret that level of mindfulness as an eating issue. That's how we've gotten into the "I'm not dieting, I'm cleansing" bullshit: we've made mindful eating uncool.

1 comment:

Tmomma said...

i've mentioned on here before that we joined a csa and have started changing the way we eat. a co-worker who i ran into at the farmers market (male) said it best when i told him that i'm trying get get as much organic fruits/veggies as possible and healthier meat b/c of the allergies and my increased awareness...he said, what we put in our body effects the rest of our body so changing the food you eat only makes sense as a starting place. did i tell you that i discovered that i love figs! little pieces of fruit heaven. i don't plan meals as well as i should but i have certainly changed the types of food we buy and it's a lot healthier ingredient and chemical wise...doesn't mean we've lost weight, but that will come in time. and, i feel like once you do a little reading on the food industry and I mean just a little, ignorance is no longer bliss and you'd be hard pressed not to change what types of food you get. as you can tell, this is a big thing for me these days. sorry for the rant. keep the good food articles coming, i enjoy learning from them.