It's so easy (part 2)

In the previous post, I talked about how the food culture in America has problems for variety of issues compared to what I experienced while living in Asia. In this post, I'd like to talk about how things aren't all bad and the fact that there are positive aspects to the food culture, especially for people who are trying to lose weight or who have special dietary concerns.

One of the differences between where I lived before and being home is that the selection in America is broader than that Asian country by far. It's not just that the shops are big, but that they offer so many colors of any particular aspect of the food rainbow. In the country I was living in, organic food was scarce, expensive, and poorly presented. It was often wilted or looked as if it were close to going bad. I'm guessing this was because their infrastructure, which was highly developed and actually superior to that in most parts of the U.S., was not designed to support rapid movement of food from place to place. It also didn't help that their farming culture was vanishing and they were getting most of their food from other countries.

Americans who live in areas which are not food deserts (that is most people, really) have access to more locally grown food and food grown without chemicals than I experienced in that Asian country. This is because we live in a huge country with a large number of farming areas and can get produce from where it is grown to where it is purchased more rapidly (as we don't have to rely on other countries) and because the demand for organic food is much higher. The country I lived in had consumers who prioritized how the produce looked, not how it was grown. If it looked good, they never questioned whether it had been sprayed with pesticides or chemcially treated so the demand for organic food was too low to see the economies of scale that you see in the U.S. And while organic food is more expensive than chemically treated food, it is still cheaper (and better) than it was in the country I used to live in (by far).

In regards to "processed food", and I view most food as processed in some way, America has better and wider options. It's important to realize that humans almost always "process" food in some way and it is the level and type of handling as well as the added ingredients that are the issue. Cheese is a processed food. Coffee is as well. The sugar-free whole grain muffins I bake on a regular basis are a processed food comprised of other processed foods such as flour, baking powder, peanut butter, etc. If you cut up, cook, or season your fruit and vegetables, you are "processing" them. That doesn't make these things unhealthy. The depth of processing matters and we have great choices in this regard compared to other parts of the world. There's a vast difference between the gallon of milk you buy and a Lean Cuisine, though both are processed.

If you are trying to eat more healthily or lose weight, you have many excellent options in the U.S. and these were ones I did not have in Asia. For example,  one of the things I have fallen in love with since coming home is almond milk. Yes, it is a processed food, but it is a simple one which can be bought containing ingredients which are not particularly alien or beyond what I willingly ingest as part of a multi-vitamin. It is no more processed than cow's milk, possibly less so. Almond milk is lower calorie and more nutritionally dense than cow's milk. It has a very long history as part of food culture (it was used for cooking in the middle ages) and, at least to me, is not far removed from what I make when I cook my own dishes. And, in fact, purists can make their own almond milk if they don't like what is sold in cartons. At 40 calories per 8 oz., it eclipses skim milk as a "diet food" option, and it tastes good and is better for you. By contrast, the country I lived in had cow's milk and soy milk. The soy milk always had sugar added and was high in fat. 

Beyond that, if you are a person who wants or, yes, "needs" to eat sweet treats or salted snacks, America is the place to be. If you can't fathom transitioning from your current food life to one of "pure" eating practices, there are options here. In the Asian country I lived in, it was "all or nothing". On the one hand, I am glad that I lost weight in that situation because it forced me to learn portion control. If I wanted a salty snack, I could ingest a lot of calories knowing I'd end up hungry for it or I could eat just 2 or 3 chips or I could choose something more nutritionally dense and forgo my craving. Here, it's not so hard. I can have Pop Chips, Skinny Cow ice cream, or some other reduced calorie snack. The "crutches" for dieters are numerous.

Of course, the diet food culture is like a minefield rife with danger. I can have Pop Chips, but I can't eat the whole bag. Portion control is still important, but the portion I can have here isn't 5 chips for 50 calories, but 10. Part of the problem for many people is that they see "diet" and think that they can lose weight and eat a lot. Perhaps the presence of such foods actually is a part of the larger problem as having the choice to eat more for a lower calorie amount encourages the continued consumption of large portions. I can't say for sure. All I can say is that it feels like a dieter's paradise here. If I wanted a bite of ice cream before, it would cost me 75 calories for two or three small spoonfuls. Here, I cut a Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich in half and have that. And, yes, I do eat only half of it, even if it is reduced calorie. That's all I "need" to be satisfied, possibly even a larger indulgence than necessary at that size. It seems to me, after living in a "dieter's desert", that the American market makes it much easier to have your cake and eat it, too, but that people end up failing anyway.

To me, there is a difference between various types of processed foods in terms of the position they take in our food life. The problem in America isn't that I'm buying ice cream sandwiches rather than making them myself. The problem isn't that they are buying dried pasta rather than hand-making their noodles. The problem is that they are buying entire meals that are frozen or dried and seeing that as the end of their meal preparation and those meals aren't nutrient-dense. I think that it is convenience that is killing us more than the presence of cheap, crappy food. Even instant ramen (which I don't like and don't eat) can come close to being healthy if you use only half the seasoning packet and add a boiled egg and some fresh vegetables. When we look to processed food as a complete solution, it is then that we start to have issues.

As someone who has found health through small steps, I believe that the first stage of improving the American diet on a personal level is to start adding in small amounts of food preparation to augment to often nutritionally deficient processed options. If you can't give up macaroni and powdered cheese packets, then at least try stirring some canned tuna into it or having broccoli (either in it or on the side). If you can't stomach plain, low-fat yogurt, then you can mix in a tablespoon of instant pudding mix (lemon is awesome for this) to make it sweeter, thicker, and more dessert-like. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing proposition. The point is not to make ourselves miserable eating food we hate because it's "good" for us or wearing ourselves out making everything from scratch, but to start a transition from where we are to someplace a little closer to where it might be nice to be. Once we start down that path, it becomes more possible to move a little closer to a life which is increasingly independent of having machines make our meals for us and eating them out of the can, freezer, or packet.

The Donut Experiment

This didn't actually start out as an experiment, but it's one of those things which came about naturally and has now become a source of experimentation for me. Awhile back, my husband picked up a big box of small donuts. Each one is about 150-170 calories, but I wasn't particularly interested in them and there were more than he could eat in a short time so we froze about 12 of them. They've been sitting in the freezer for over a month now.

Three days ago, I decided that I wanted a donut for breakfast. As I've mentioned before, on occasion, I allow a sugary treat for breakfast. More often than not, said treats are bigger than these and weigh in around 200-280 calories. Since I usually eat a muffin or baked oatmeal bar that is low-fat, sugar-free, whole grain, and made with applesauce and fruit, my "regular" breakfast is around 150-180 calories, eating a donut usually means eating more calories than usual for breakfast. However, the small size of these puts the caloric value of these particular donuts squarely on the same calorie footing as my healthier alternative.

After eating my muffin with coffee made with milk, I've eaten about 200-250 calories for breakfast (depending on the type of muffin or baked oatmeal bar and if I use margarine with it or not). Usually, about 2-2.5 hours after I eat, I get hungry again and have a piece of fruit. I don't see a problem with this. I don't eat much for breakfast so I can hardly expect it to last long before I might want to eat again. I have a banana or orange usually, and then wait for lunch .

I paired the small donut with the same coffee preparation I always have for a similar calorie total, and I waited to get hungry in a couple of hours. Since the donut is sugary and fried, I expected a crash and a blood sugar spike and more intense hunger two hours after eating. Here's the thing, I was much less hungry than usual. In fact, I have had this same breakfast for the last 3 days with the same result. The donuts do not leave me hungrier. They leave me fuller.

I'm not fooling myself in any way that the donut is "better" for me at all. It absolutely is emptier calories and the homemade stuff has more fiber, protein, minerals, and vitamins. In terms of pure nutrition, I'm better off with the homemade things even when all calories are equal. However, this has confirmed something I've experienced for quite awhile, and that is that fruit and any food which contains substantial amounts of fruit makes me hungrier and the inclusion of a higher amount of fat keeps me sated. This appears to be the trend regardless of the protein content that is included with the meal.

The lesson I take away from this is not that I should eat a small donut every morning to keep full and lose weight. I love fruit, and I love whole grain baked goods as well. Frankly, though I enjoy the occasional donut, I wouldn't want to have one every morning as it gets boring, even when there are different varieties on hand.

What I have had reinforced by this is that there are no rules for eating that apply to everyone equally. I've read loads about blood sugar and nutrition and they all talk about how refined flour and sugar will have you gnawing your arm off in hunger after consuming them and that protein is the hunger-fighting warrior. Clearly, it's not working that way for me, particularly at present.

It's not as if I didn't already know that we're all unique in these aspects, but the donut experiment just brought home how vastly different a particular individual's biochemistry can be from that of another. You have to write you own book, because no one else's will apply to you.

Another Word for "Blame"

Several weeks ago, I was returning from an errand which I dutifully walked to instead of riding a bicycle so that I could get some extra exercise in. About a minute before I got home, I caught the tip of my sandal on some rough and uneven pavement and fell hard. My palms were scraped badly and bloody. My knees were scratched up and sporting large black and blue marks. I cut my forehead and chin and my nose was bleeding inside and bruised outside. My glasses were broken.

If someone said that this fall was my fault, how would that sound? I chose to walk instead of ride a bike. I chose to walk over that particular area of the sidewalk. I chose the shoes I wore. I chose to live in the city I live in. I chose to wear shorts so my knees were exposed and I wasn't wearing gloves or a face mask to protect myself. I chose to wear glasses instead of contact lenses which would not have been broken. Is it fair to say that it is my fault that I fell and got hurt so much because of my choices?

I offer this story not only because it is true, but as an imperfect analogy for something which troubles me, and that is the use of the word "responsibility" when it comes to weight loss. I call this imperfect because it is a backwards situation compared to the real thing that I want to discuss. However, what I want my dear readers to focus on is the fact that there was an unforeseen or unpredictable outcome to a sequence of choices that were made. No one would say I was responsible for my fall due to those choices. It came upon me, and those choices did affect the outcome, but does that make it my "fault"?

I read a lot of people talk about "taking responsibility" for their weight, and on the surface, that is certainly a mature and agreeable sounding thing. However, I would say that this is looking at the moment one has tripped rather than all of the things that lead up to the problem. Though it can be said that we "choose" to eat whatever we eat, this is a very simplistic manner in which to view people's relationships with food. There are a great many choices that we didn't have which lead up to the moments we chose to overeat. I cannot speak for others, but (among other things) I didn't choose:

• To grow up with a mother who overfed me on high fat and white carbohydrates.
• To grow up with a completely distorted understanding of portion sizes and nutrition and therefore to view it as the norm.
• To be tormented by my peers out of the joys of sports and exercise.
• To grow up poor and exposed to very little in the way of fresh fruit and vegetables.
• To be given food instead of love because neither of my parents were comfortable with their positive emotions.
• To be tortured by my peers such that comfort came from something destructive.
• To be in this body that was built by my parents' choices and income rather than a healthy one with better biological responses.
• I didn't choose to grow up around emotionally volatile people, one of whom was an alcoholic and role-modeled addictive behavior.
• I didn't choose to be biologically prone to addictive behavior or obesity (everyone in my family is very overweight).
• I didn't choose to be verbally abused if my behavior was not perfect and therefore susceptible to certain limited options for coping with what was happening to me before I was an adult.

Just as I did not know that I was going to fall when I took that step, I did not know that there were a multitude of issues leading up to my food habits. I couldn't choose them both because I was not in control of my life during my formative years and because I didn't know that an eating disorder would be the outcome of the things that happened in my life.

Up until this past year, I knew my problems and I knew some of the reasons, but I didn't know how to fix them. I knew I ate too much. I knew I was fat. I didn't know how to stop myself because the truth was until I understood a great many things, I couldn't make a choice. Responsibility requires control. It requires the ability to make a choice. I had none. I couldn't stop overeating anymore than I could make it rain of my own volition up until I gained some insight. It was like I had two ends of a rope that I had to tie together to start solving my problem, but they didn't quite meet and I had no idea how to bring them together.

People who talk about being "responsible" for what you eat act as though the moment that you place the food in your mouth is a choice in isolation. It is not. That moment is shaped by all of the things that came before which you couldn't control. People who use the word "responsibility" in this way are not interested in anything other than judgment and blame. They bully themselves into better eating habits and want to bully you, too. Their motive isn't to be nasty or unkind. They don't have insight into themselves and think this is what will "work" for them, and they can "motivate" others by pushing them similarly. In the end, this "works" for some people, but more than a handful of them come out the other side rather angry, bitter, and rigid because, while they have managed to pen up their hungry horses, they're still attacking the stall trying to get out and run free.

The bottom line is that we can change, and we can "take responsibility" for what we eat, but we can't if we ignore all of the things that we didn't choose which lead up to our food habits. If we only attempt to deal with the moment of the fall rather than the events that lead up to it, we're doomed to fall again and again. Pushing people or trying to make them feel bad because they can't stop eating certain foods does not help them. It's not about shoving responsibility on them so that they can be "blamed" for being fat, it's about understanding. Only after we understand can we gain the power to have a choice rather than have it made for us by every circumstance that lead up to it.

It's my belief that everyone who has an issue with overeating which they struggle to conquer is to some degree like a puppet on strings. Some of them are tethered to their problems with just a few fragile sewing threads which they can tug at and break free. Some of us, however, are attached with a multitude of steel cables that we struggle with very hard to break free of. Some people can't break free no matter how hard they try. The past is our puppet master, and no amount of talk about "responsibility" is going to change that. Changing that requires insight and a difficult (and perhaps long) therapeutic process.

You Aren't What You Eat

One day a week, most weeks, I do a complete cleaning of my apartment. I try to get laundry done, clean the bathroom, vacuum, dust, wash any of the crustier-looking bits of the kitchen, and weed out objects or areas that are looking a bit overgrown with stuff that should move on to another area or the trash bin. This takes a considerable amount of time and energy, but I am happy when I am done.

Every week, I do this because living in a clean apartment (at least until the end of the week when it is a bit less so) is a nicer experience than living in a dirty one. I'm not a clean freak, nor obsessive about organization, though I am more organized than many people. My improved feeling is a reflection of the sense of living in a nicer environment which in turn makes me more comfortable being in that space, not as a result of any sense of being a "good housekeeper" who keeps a nice home. My actions in this regard do not reflect on my character or status as a person. My home does not carry such power in my life. I don't feel "proud" of what I do.

I was reading a post over at A Merry Life about feeling guilty about eating things which are considered verboten either by people trying to lose weight or fat people. As many already know, I eat a little of what people might call "junk" every day; it's not much, just a few bites of chocolate, a cup of sugar-free cocoa, a small ice cream bar, or a serving of pretzels. It's usually 100-200 calories per day at most. Sometimes it's under 50 calories. It's all part of the day's calorie total and it's a small moment of sensory pleasure in a sea of instrumental eating. I do not feel guilty about eating such things now.

When I was out of control with my eating, I felt guilt all of the time about eating "bad" foods. I realize now that the guilt was a manifestation of shame, and that shame was rooted in my internalizing the idea that eating such foods was a reflection of a deeper character weakness. If I were strong, if I were emotionally well, if, if, if... I wouldn't eat those kinds of things to give me pleasure. The real problem wasn't the pleasure. It was the out of control nature of what I was doing.

Getting back to the point about guilt, as I pondered Mary's post, I realized that in addition to not feeling guilt about how I eat, I also do not feel pride. I am happy that I'm in control and losing weight. Make no doubt about that, but that happiness does not bloom into any sense of being "proud" of myself. Just like I'm happier living in my nice clean apartment than a dirty one, I'm happier living in a lighter, stronger body. However, I don't see what I am doing in any way as a deeper reflection of my character. It's not that I don't think my character is a good, strong one, but rather that food quantities and choices to me have nothing to do with who I am now. They used to, but only because society drummed that message into me and I had fully integrated it into my estimation of myself. Ironically, that message in turn made it all the harder to gain the control I desperately needed.

What I realized is that pride and guilt are two sides of the sword when it comes to being a person with disordered eating. Feeling either of these things is empowering food to define you in a way which almost certainly is not healthy for you in the long run. What is more, it increases the chances that you will also start to externalize the sense that food choices and quantities define others and will start to judge others by what they eat which is saddling others with the very thing which contributes to your problem.

I will be frank and say that I am proud of the contents of this blog and the way in which I have used behavioral and psychological conditioning to help me achieve my goals. Those things are a reflection of my knowledge, intellect, wisdom, insight and maturity. All of these things are aspects of my character which I actively cultivate and work hard to grow in my daily life. My food choices may now reflect that growth, but they are not the source of it, nor is the sum of those choices evidence of my superiority or value.

I would encourage anyone who is attempting to adjust their relationship with food or any other aspect in their life to consider the role of both pride and guilt carefully in their lives. Should we be proud of things like eating vegetables, fruit, and lean meat all day rather than indulging in a square of chocolate? Is that really where we want to be deriving our sense of worth or status from? Is that the well from which we want to draw self-esteem? If so, then every bite we put in our mouths is going to be followed by an act of self-judgment. What a horrible state to have to live in!

I'm not suggesting that people not be proud of achieving their goals. In fact, what I'm saying is far from that. I'm saying that we should find our pride in the personal growth that has to come along first and then allows us to start making those choices. This may seem a fine separation, but I believe it is an important one. It gives you power over yourself and places your actions in review, not food.

Don't be proud of your salad eating. Be proud of your ability to change yourself into a person who is capable of making a choice which is more nutritious rather than a more gratifying one. Don't feel guilty for having a scoop of ice cream. Try to understand why you chose that ice cream and to place it in context for your day's eating. If it fits your calorie guidelines, be glad that you had the control to stop at one scoop. Be proud that you have grown that sort of control in yourself. If it put you over the top calorically, consider your planning skills in light of your needs to consume something for pleasure. Then be proud that you have grown enough to not be emotional and can be rational for something as trivial as a less than perfect food choice.

What is the point of this sort of fine discrimination and disconnecting of food from your estimation of yourself? The point is to not see food choices as a reflection of you or a source of good or bad feelings but to see your actions and character as a reflection of you. You are not what you eat on a spiritual or psychological level, only on a physical one, so don't link your psyche to food choices.

(Formerly Grim) Realities

Following the a trail of links to a book written by a formerly fat woman about her transition from obesity to size 2, I found a review on Amazon about said book. The woman who wrote the book essentially said that she ate less and exercised more. As an aside, let me say that it amazes me that variations on this theme continue to be published as it's really nothing new under the sun. At any rate, one of the women who reviewed it negatively essentially said that she didn't need to read a book to be told that exercising over an hour a day five days a week and eating half a sandwich for lunch would get her thin. As a related aside, let me say that it amazes me that people who purchase diet books continue to hope for a magic pill or formula that doesn't include eating less or exercising more to help them lose weight.

I'm on record as saying that I dislike the "eat less, exercise more" mantra, because it imparts no real useful information. It isn't about these acts. It's about teaching one how to go about being capable of these actions. If you can't explain how to get, and more importantly, stay there, then you really have nothing of value to offer anyone. Part of the reason I blog is that I record how I'm getting there. I'm only now coming to terms with conceptualizing how to stay there.

If a year or so ago when I first rolled up my sleeves and started to attempt to lose weight, someone had told me that I'd have to do the things I'm doing now, I'd have felt it was not only impossible in the short term, but definitely out of the question in the long term. The transition between what I did then and what I do now is quite large. For people who are very overweight (250 lbs. or heavier), I strongly believe that the slow road is the better path. I feel this because a super strict, fast route is not one which can be trodden successfully for the duration, and anyone who is very overweight likely needs to relearn how to eat and deal with their psychological issues in order to make sure they can maintain. The fast road is too dramatic and you are so mired in concentrating on the process that you don't pause to catch the scenery, which includes all of the mental crap that you're going to be chucking in the closet and ignoring until one day it is going to come out and yell "boo" at you and scare you back into your old eating habits.

Since I feel that I've got a fair amount of the mental part untangled, and the processes down fairly well, I've reached a few conclusions about the realities of living at a lower weight for the rest of my life. A year ago, these realities would be very grim for me because I think they would be things I couldn't conceptualize as being physically or emotionally possible for me. For people who are at the start of their efforts, especially those at a very high weight, offering up these realities only makes them feel more helpless and overwhelmed. I know I would have felt so had I been told that this would be the way I'd have to live the rest of my life.

I have felt for quite some time that I would have to monitor my calories for the rest of my life because my food compass is broken. What crystallized for me today was that there are certain patterns to eating that are pretty much going to be a forever thing now. These patterns are not ones that bother me in the least at this stage of the game, but conceptualizing them in this manner helps me understand why many overweight people feel they can never lose weight or, if they lose it, they can't keep it off.

If I don't want to regain weight, I realize that in terms of eating that:*

• I will always have to eat what would be considered child-size portions of things like sandwiches and carbohydrates.
• I will always eat about 2/3 to half the portions of proteins that many Americans consider appropriate depending on whether it is lean or fatty.
• I will always have to regard full-calorie treats and desserts in terms of having two or three bites or have them very infrequently.
• I will never be able to eat more than a half dozen nuts at once, and even then infrequently.
• I can never eat more than a palm full of salted snacks, and probably be limited to two or three pieces.
• All full fat dairy (cream, butter, sour cream, etc.) will have to be consumed by the tablespoon at most.
• I will never be able to eat more than a small quantity of cheese - likely no more than the size of one slice of pre-packaged cheese (which I don't eat, but I use that as a portion reference).
• The only food I will be able to eat in relative abundance will be plain vegetables.
• I will never be able to eat fruit as freely as I want.
• I will never be able to freely or regularly drink anything with calories including things like milk (even low-fat), lattes or juice.
• I will never be able to eat more than two small or one medium piece of pizza. I will never be able to eat something like a full slice of Costco pizza unless I skip a meal to accommodate it.
• I will never be able to eat a full large-size pastry and will only occasionally be able to eat a portion of one.
• I will never be able to eat until "stuffed" or "very full". At best, I'll be "full". "Pigging out" will never be a possibility.
• I will always pay a price for any "indulgence" that is used as a meal (like having a donut for breakfast) by having to deal with greater hunger for having spent the calories on something empty and not having consumed a large quantity of such foods.

I'm okay with all of these things... now. However, I would have seen these as so restrictive as to be impossible to live with before I went through this transition. Not only would I have chafed at the bit of getting so little pleasure from food, but I couldn't fathom feeling okay on so few calories everyday. I would only think about the gnawing hunger I'd believe I'd feel day-in and day-out for the rest of my life and decide that I'd rather stay fat than suffer for the duration of my existence.

One thing that I realize at this point in time is that a person who is substantially overweight and has been eating too much all of their lives (or for much of it) can't begin to understand that they can be comfortable with far, far less forever. This is not a failing on their part. It's simply impossible to relate to that possibility unless you've made substantial mental and physical changes over a long period of time. I couldn't understand that initially. I didn't know my body and mind would change enough to drop down to a different comfort level with portions and calories. I didn't know I wouldn't suffer terribly at this level of consumption. I didn't even necessarily internalize the idea fully until relatively recently.

That's not to say that everyone should make the transition that I have, nor that the method I have followed is for anyone but me. The way I see it is that you have a choice to make. You can feed your body like an 18-wheeler that needs a ton of fuel or you can feed it like a compact car. You get to drive around the type of body that you fuel, and the choice is entirely up to the individual. As long as one is happy with the choices one makes and the consequences do not trouble them, more power to you while you drive around whatever body you're pumping energy into.

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*I'm adding this comment because I don't want to be misunderstood about why I believe these things. These apply to me with my lifestyle choices. I realize that people who are willing to go to the gym and work their ass off or run miles per week to burn loads of calories can eat more, but I'm too old, weak, fragile, and busy to bust my ass exercising just so I can eat more. Also, frankly, I traveled down that road from ages 19-22 and it didn't serve me well in the long run. I believe that relying on food restriction for weight control is a more reliable approach in the long run as it does not require anything other than making certain choices. Exercising requires that you be well and uninjured, states which I cannot rely on.

My Mother's Book

My mother had two tricks in her book of half-assed parenting, and my father had no book at all. According to my mother, he never wanted kids (thanks, Mom, for sharing that fact with my sister and I... it really helped us feel unwanted and unloved from a young age), and this explained his lack of parenting. As for my Mom, she alternately claimed to want as many kids as she could push out but was stopped in her tracks by a uterine infection that required a semi-hysterectomy or to have not had sufficient access to "rubbers" when she was younger.

Getting back to her slim volume on parenting though... My mother either was completely slack about monitoring us in vital aspects of our childhood or adamant about adhering so strongly to her principles that she exhibited no flexibility whatsoever. She never pushed us to brush our teeth on a regular basis, for instance. Though she claims to have told us to do so, I can't recall her telling us past the age of 6, nor did she ever buy toothpaste. When I got old enough to care because of my own concerns as I approached adulthood, I'd already lost two molars to cavities, was in need of some fillings (which I never got until my 20's) and had to buy my own toothpaste.

When I asked my mother about why she didn't push us harder to brush our teeth, she shrugged and said, "I tried, but you didn't do it." I guess it was just too much trouble to come upstairs to the bathroom every night and check on us when she could just sit on her ass in front of the T.V. and leave us to fend for ourselves. It could also be that having lost all of her perfect, white teeth to gum disease around age 26, she found it hard to care about our dental health.

In terms of the things that she did care about, there was generally a patchwork quilt of things she'd insist on then drop from consideration. One of those things, of course, was food. My mother is a terrible cook and most of the vegetables that I was offered as a child came from a can. Canned vegetables might be okay if you are putting them in soup or cooking them up creatively with some other ingredients, but slopping them into a pot to reheat them and then dropping them on a plate is a singularly awful experience, particularly for a child.

I recall one situation where my mother served us canned peas when I was around 10. Usually, she didn't care about what we ate, but she insisted that I eat those peas and wasn't going to let me up into I consumed all of the vile things. They were mushy and tasted bad and I loathed them. In the end, I think she gave up before I gave in and I didn't eat them. I love all sorts of vegetables, and eat them everyday, but I still hate peas and have never bought them fresh, frozen or, shudder, canned.

This little anecdote is being offered to illustrate how our eating habits are influenced by people telling us what to eat and not to eat. Despite being very open-minded about sampling new foods, I've formed a seemingly life-long dislike of something because I was forced to eat it when I found the experience repugnant. I think parents often make the mistake of forcing foods on their children in an effort to make them eat more healthily without considering the palates of young children. Kids have a much stronger sense of smell and taste than adults and are naturally still more in touch with what and how much they need to eat than adults. It's only after years of being pushed to "clean your plate" or to "eat your vegetables" that they grow into adults who overeat and eat junk food continuously as an act of rebellion.

In my mother's book of parenting, we were poor and food should not be wasted so if she peeled 10 lbs. of potatoes for mashing and dropped a bucket of them on the table, we were supposed to put away as much as possible. If she opened up a can of some mushy, over-cooked, salty canned vegetables that even most adults would not eat, we were obliged to help her finish it. It wasn't about healthy eating, it was about what she felt should be done in line with her valuing the cost of food over our health. In the end, she obliterated any healthy relationship my sister and I could have had with food, but she absolutely was unaware of what she did.

Grocery Cart Judges

With the number of people losing their jobs and having to use food stamps, more people are getting a dose of what it is like to be judged for their food purchases. I've read many comments from people who have taken issue with the poor using their government-sponsored food purchases to buy snack cakes, potato chips, and soda. People feel that, since they pay taxes which pay for a food stamp recipient's sustenance, they have the right to decide what should be bought.

Most people believe the poor should only be given certificates for rice and beans. I guess they feel it's not bad enough being poor, but you also have to have your food choices dictated as well. My feeling about this is that I wouldn't invite someone in need into my home for a meal with the attitude that I would only feed them a particular type of food based on income level, so why should I regard food stamps any differently? I'm pretty sure anyone who I served a meal to would be offered dessert, a variety of drinks, and some interesting main meal. I guess some people would serve a poor person a different meal than a middle class one.

Of course, if you're overweight, that judgment has likely been with you during your entire shopping life. People look at your body, then swivel their eyes to your shopping cart or grocery basket. You can almost read their minds as they do this. They're trying to find out:

1. Are you buying the sort of food that will make you even fatter?
2. Are you buying healthy food and trying to lose weight?
3. Is there any evidence in your cart that leads them to understand how you got so fat?

Depending on what they see, I'm sure they're reaching certain conclusions. If you have something they don't approve of in the basket, they're going to view you with increased disgust. If you have healthy food, they will either think that your attempts are in vain if you don't get off your lazy ass and exercise or that you are at least not making it any worse.

Chances are that, in the absence of any overtly sugary or fatty food in your cart, they're going to be scrutinizing the kind of food you're buying in general. Too many carbohydrates? Meat that isn't lean enough? Too much processed food? People need to find a way to blame you for your weight and the shopping cart is the best way to find incriminating evidence.

I don't think I've ever gotten a look from someone which conveyed any sort of "approval", even when the basket's contents were nothing more than fruit and vegetables. Most people tend to either give you a look of disgust if they find something objectionable or they go back to looking around the store. They either find reason to despise you or lose interest if they can't find what they need to judge you harshly. I think most of the people who judge you by your shopping cart think you shouldn't be eating at all based on your weight.