Accidental Ambivalence

Project: Food Photography

I recently came across an article on mindful eating, and it piqued my curiosity. The author began with an anecdote about seeing other patrons in restaurants pausing before they eat to photograph their food and her own impressions and opinions of it. Ultimately, she seemed to think that it was an interesting facet of the habit of mindful eating - really paying attention to what you're putting in your mouth and all of the sensations that go along with it. It's about focusing your attention on your meal rather than on the television or the book you're reading and listening to the signals your body is giving you about that meal.

Maybe you love a dinner of nachos with spicy cheese, beef, and jalapenos washed down with a giant margarita, but an hour after you eat, you feel sluggish and you have heartburn. Your body is telling you that it was a bad choice; nachos and margaritas make you feel bad. Then you can pause to consider why you like them in the first place. Sure, you like spicy food and tequila, but really, this is a meal that you associate with late nights with your college roommate. In fact, when you eat mindfully and really pay attention to the food as you eat (instead of watching Jersey Shore and rolling your eyes at Snooki's sunglasses), you begin to notice that most of the chips are soggy, the cheese is congealing, and you added a bit too much ice before you blended the margarita. It's actually a poor substitute for a meal you had at a time when you had a lot of fun.

I am among the last people who should tell anyone how to eat. The fact that I don't weigh 300 lbs and suffer from a whole host of medical issues is a testament to good genes and good luck. When I was living in College Town (and honestly, through most of high school), almost everything I ate was crap. I was completely addicted to Totino's pizza rolls for about three years, my shopping trips always included large amounts of junk food, and I ate fast food constantly (my apartment was a block from a Taco Bell that was open till 5 am - seriously).

When I moved in with the roommate, having someone see what I was eating did shame me a bit into pretending that I was eating healthier, but the fact was that I still fed myself predominantly with junk. And our house was a different culture than that of my parents' home, a dorm, or my solo apartment: We were drinkers. Beer and liquor were a part of daily life with the Roommate instead of a sometimes thing or a going-out-binge-drinking thing.

Moving back to Small Town where eating fast food became more challenging (the only fast food establishments in Small Town are McDonald's and Sonic; the only other chain restaurant is Pizza Hut) meant that I was going to have to cook more. Combine that with my four months of not making a single dime and preparing my meals became the norm. While I occasionally ate at my parents' restaurant and they would occasionally bring me takeout, I made nearly everything I ate. I'd like to think I've cultivated some good habits in the last six years, and particularly in the last year. I switched from the whole milk I was raised on to nonfat, unless the bread is French I buy whole wheat, I've taught myself to like peas and broccoli and onions, and I've made an effort to eat meals that are more balanced, even if they aren't always the height of health.

For the last two weeks, I've sworn off snacks in an attempt to look hot(ter) when I see Project later this month. It is absolutely vanity and I'm not ashamed to admit that. I struggle with eating snacks that are a) a reasonable size and b) not junk food. So I didn't allow myself to buy any junk and I'm not allowed to eat between meals. Because I'm thinking about how long it's going to be before I can eat again, I'm thinking about balancing my meals better than I ever did before, and I think that's probably the best thing that will come from this little experiment.

Still, I've fallen off the wagon a time or two. One night last week I had such a craving for sugar - of any kind, really - that I sent a despairing text mesage to Bradshaw. I then proceded to pit some of the cherries in my fridge and warm them with a bit of butter and brown sugar before gobbling them up. (Apparently just the sugary-ness of the cherries themselves wasn't enough for me.)

I'm going to experiment with mindful eating. There are plenty of aspects to this, but I'm not going to promise that I'll sit at the table and avoid watching television while I eat (in fact, I almost certainly will be watching television). What I will do is take a photograph of each meal before I eat, and as an act of accountability, I will post about the experiment in one week.*

Wish me luck. And, if you're at all intriguied, I challenge you to play with me. Photograph one meal each day if you aren't feeling as ambitious as I am.

*And I swear I won't make you look at a slew of poorly styled photos of my food. I'll make a collage that you can give a cursory glance and then ignore.

Labels: kitchen adventures, project

posted by nicalyse @ 3:59 PM