14 August 09

Food Should Not Make You Feel Guilty

I know I have an atypical approach to food when compared to the average American woman. I am better at understanding and accepting this difference than I was, and I owe a certain feminist book club gratitude for that. But a conversation that I had with two friends yesterday struck me as odd at the time, but it’s stuck with me so I felt the need to process it externally a bit.

I like food. A lot. Yes, I’m no longer the size 2 I was when I moved to Chicago. But I’m honestly okay with that. I wish some of the clothes I had from that time fit me still, but in general I don’t spend much time thinking about how whether what I’m eating is going to cause me to lose weight. And I realize that I’m very fortunate to not be diabetic, or have thyroid issues, or even have allergies to common items that are hard to avoid. Because this helps permit me the ability to think about what I want to eat and then to figure out how best to make that happen. I’m also lucky that I don’t have to count pennies to feed my small family. I’ve been there, and it makes you think about food differently.

Yesterday I went to Hot Doug’s restaurant for lunch. Hot Doug’s is a very casual restaurant that serves fancy sausages with fancy cheeses and fancy mustards and sauces. They also serve french fries cooked in duck fat two days a week. And they have tater tots and corn dogs. It’s not healthy, or remotely “good for you”. And you frequently have to wait at least 30 minutes in line before you get to sit at a table with your fancy fast-food lunch.

As we were waiting in line, we started talking about how we would balance our hotdog eating extravaganza later on. And until it was brought up, I hadn’t thought about it at all. Hot Doug’s is a treat. I can rarely go so I make it there 2 or 3 times a year. If it was closer and easier to get to, it may be different for me. But it’s distance and daytime-only hours automatically make a treat item. And because it is classified in my mind as a treat, I don’t think twice about going when I have the chance. I also don’t think about how I’m going to adjust my eating habits for the next few days to make up for having eaten a hot dog and tater tots dipped in cheese sauce.

But as I’m planning a meal, or choosing a dinner off a plate. I try to pick items so I have a balanced and varied diet and I try to listen to my cravings to see what I want. Fat content and calories rarely comes into play when I think about this. Wednesday, for example, I had 2 slices of bacon, 1 fried egg, and some leftover rice that I fried in the skillet with the bacon. Not a “healthy” breakfast, right? For lunch I needed to know how long to cook a hamburger in a skillet so I bought ground beef, made a patty, timed it and then ate it. So at dinner I look over a menu and realize that I’m craving something green, crunchy, fresh, and maybe even raw. So I had a salad with melon and goat cheese and it was great.

So when I was ready to choose my dog on Thursday, I wasn’t thinking about how I’d balance my hotdog later on. I was thinking about how I would enjoy my hotdog right then. Because I firmly think that eating food shouldn’t make you feel guilty. I don’t think that food and guilt should ever be a joined idea. Food is food, it nourishes our bodies, and hopefully our souls as well. When I eat a hotdog at Hot Doug’s, I enjoy every bite. I relish the combination of the well-thought out sauces and cheese combinations. I dream of eating everything on the menu. I get ideas for things to try later (like pork cutlets with a mustard/olive sauce based on the muffuletta mustard on a hotdog I ate). But, most importantly, I enjoy what I’m eating while I’m eating it.

Later in the evening, when dinner time rolled around and I was with my fellow craft mafia babes. I thought about what I’d eaten and what I was interested in. Semiramis has this great falafel wrap chock full of crunchy lettuce, tomatoes, tahini, and pickle spears. And yes the falafel was fried. But I decided that I wanted that anyway. If I’d been hungry enough, I would have ordered a side salad, but I still wasn’t very hungry.

Then today, after two days of eating fairly high-fat meals, and knowing that dinner would have some very cheesy mac’n‘cheese involved in it, I was going through the refrigerator and saw some leftover spinach that I’d sauteed. I decided to warm it up, but wanted something more to go with it. And, in a move that I rarely take, I decided to separate two eggs and mix just the egg whites into the spinach to bind it together. The yolks were cooked and will be served to my older kitty who really liked it and who needs to gain some weight. But I didn’t do this because I was supposed to, or because I felt guilty, but because it was what felt right.

And I think this is the disconnect that many other people have, and it’s what I can’t seem to understand. I eat what sounds good and I try to make sure that I’m eating more vegetables than cheese. I tend to eat more fish and more chicken than I do beef or pork. Pork is impossible to get in our neighborhood and I just rarely think about cooking beef. (It’s one of the hardest chapters of this cookbook to write, actually.) But since I tend to be anemic, I try to keep track of how often I eat it so I can keep track of how I’m feeling to know when I need to eat some. But during the summer, I’m more likely to crave spinach or greens, than I am beef. And I’m okay with that, because I’m listening to what my body is telling me I need.

Comments

  1. While there are things that I obviously must avoid and limit with type 2 diabetes, I try not to feel guilty about enjoying the majority of food. I like the intuitive eating thing – my body must need what looks/sounds good (again, within some reason with the diabetic body). And that’s totally ok, because if I stress less about what I’m eating, I have better blood sugar control anyways.

    — Rachel on Aug 14, 06:44 pm

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