What We Eat: Food Issues

[Hopalong]

Ooooh bravo.
I know that when I'm my healthiest I don't think much about food either. I think as a human animal, it's not really normal to. Back when I was a cave woman, when the food appeared, I cooked and ate it (it was lean, too, those mastodons kept moving). When there was no food around I tended the rug rat, and concentrated on my cave paintings and practicing my howling for the next moon meeting. The rest of the time I just sat in front of the cave and watched birds, and the wind in the trees, and smelled the air. Lately I noticed that some plant keeps growing where I dumped some gourds. I wonder...

Today we're just bombarded with food advertising and so many people make every contact with another person a chance to focus on "Let's have lunch/dinner/coffee and pastry/wine and cheese/dessert..."

Maybe I should answer, well, no thank you, but let's have a nice talk! 

When I feel most myself I am excited, in the moment, sniffing the breeze, not obsessed with tasting.

Hops

[Hopalong]

And...I wonder if one reason many of us get so wound up about food that we overeat is because the culture has shed so many of the small community rituals that used to connect people to each other, and bring them together?

We don't sit in the sun and weave baskets together, or prepare our meals communally.
We don't sing together regularly (unless we're Write  )

We are in our separate apartments/houses/jobs and could go long stretches with no communal activity that is nourishing to our inner pack animal.

Hops

[Portia]

I wonder now if I’m running chasing the mastodon or not! (Those guys haven’t brought enough back again and I don’t feel like picking berries….where’s my spear?)

"Let's have lunch/dinner/coffee and pastry/wine and cheese/dessert..."
Maybe I should answer, well, no thank you, but let's have a nice talk!

Oh I do not like eating with people I don’t know well. I really don’t like it. And business lunches ooooooo! Cringe city. Yuk. I once went to a Chinese with three males – one colleague, two bosses. This prawn thing only contained 3 huge prawns. They all attacked this dish and took one each. I was the poorest and lowest paid and I loved prawns and I will never forget that!!! Haha. True. Now were they rude? I think so. yes I think so. 

Eating brings out the worse in some people I think. And those stand up buffets are painful. How can anyone eat like that and enjoy it? I can’t. oh it’s about being social? No……food is too close to home, too necessary for life. I don’t want to eat with strangers (do I want strangers in the other bodily function areas of my life?).

And food is so close to love, is love, if prepared with love. The whole food ritual is so intimate. Think where it starts!

[IamNewtoMe]

Anybody got some other one-dish balanced things?

I liked your recipe, Hops. I will try it.  Here is one of mine that is good for using whatever veggies you have in the fridge:

Chinese-like veggie stuff:
Sautee onions, garlic, minced ginger (all or just one or two of them).
Add whatever veggies you have around (cabbage, carrots, broccoli, peppers, yellow squash, peas, etc.), and sautee a couple minutes.
Add cubes of tofu and some broth -enough to make it soupy.
Add soy sauce and maybe a dash of Chinese 5-spice powder (both optional).
Bring it to a boil and then thicken with corn starch-water mixture, as you would thicken a gravy.
Serve over brown rice.

Sorry about the lack of measurements - I just make it up as I go along.

[WRITE]

I was the poorest and lowest paid and I loved prawns and I will never forget that!!!

you know that quote The best portion of a good man's life: his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love well this is the opposite 

They should have offered you first anyway in our culture!

[Hopalong]

New, I can do that one! Thanks. Sounds yummy.

Prawns, eh, P? Well, your tastes sure evolved... 

Hops

[Overcomer]

Well, for me, I grew up in a very religious family who didn't drink, smoke, cuss, have premarital sex, yada yada yada.........but we had potlucks.  Boy we ate.  And we still eat.  It's the only thing my family does.  My husband?  Drink.  We went out for my birthday - not a couple of weeks ago but a year ago.  He said, "Let's go out to eat for your birthday."  Well, I ate...............he drank.  Hey!!  Maybe he thinks he is getting his hops, barley and wheat!!  A vegetarian dish!!

But for me................I eat when I'm...................sad, angry, lonely, bored, etc.  If there is a cookie near by the cookie monster comes out in me...............It's almost like if my stomach does not have something in it I feel empty.  Isn't that crazy?  It's like I am feeding this desire to be filled up with ................something.  In another thread someone said when you get rid of a bad thing, you have to replace it with something good.....................so when I am dieting and I have that "need" to have something in my stomach or need something to do, I need to take a walk or drink a big glass of purified water....................any other thoughts??

[Brigid]

Kelly,
I think that would be referred to as emotional eating.  At least that is what I hear Oprah call it.  I've always had more problems keeping weight on than off, but I rarely make friends saying that.

I have played cards every Monday afternoon with a great group of women for nearly 10 years.  We take turns hosting at our homes.  The hostess is responsible for providing lunch and we usually do soup, salad, dessert and snacks.  About 5 years ago we created our own cookbook since we were exchanging so many recipes.  The following is a very popular recipe that we have all made at some time or another because it is so easy and very low in fat and calories. I'm sure you could leave out the chicken and replace it with something vegetarian if you chose.

Skinny Minnie Tortilla Soup

1 can  16 oz. fat free refried beans
1 can  14 oz. low-fat chicken broth
1 can  5 oz. chunk chicken
1 can  11 oz. whole kernel corn with liquid
1 can  15 oz. black beans, rinsed and drained
3/4 cup  chunky salsa

Optional:  2 cups shredded low fat cheese & baked tortilla chips

Combine first 6 ingredients in pot.  Bring to boil, stirring until refried beans are completely mixed in.  Turn down heat and simmer till serving. 

To serve, ladle soup over tortilla chips in bottom of bowls and top with shredded cheese.

Can be made in slow cooker.

It also freezes very well.

Brigid

[Hopalong]

Hi Kelly,
That was me...about when you let go of a bad thing it's important to fill the space with something good.

Hmmm. I totally understand eating in response to mood and emotion. I seem to be getting a grip again now.

I remember when I once lived in a tiny town on the Chesapeake Bay a woman lived across the road from me in a simple, pictuesque house, with her husband, a waterman. He had a girlfriend. She had terribly sad eyes and was very heavy. I wanted to be her friend. I remember one day I was in her kitchen and she looked at me and said, the only joy I have is what goes in my mouth. I was young (22) and it broke my heart. I could see she had stopped dreaming of anything.

I think it's sadness. I think when life trims our sails and we feel trapped...in this culture where food and reminders of food are everywhere, it's like artificial joy.

I think for me, the only thing to fill it up with is community (child, friends, my church) and creating (writing or painting) and connecting to the earth (gardening) and maybe helping others.

Barack Obama said tonight that his mother used to always ask him, are you being useful? When I think about that...I'm not hungry.

My overeating isn't hunger anyway. The good food, healthy stuff...covers me physically.

Hops

[Overcomer]

Chesapeake, huh?  I have some very good friends that live in the Hampton Roads area...............was there last year August for one of their weddings!!  Small world.

Well, in my mind, I am trapped in a cycle of eating and I blame it on my nmom.  That fact that I know this and can acknowledge it is ludacris.  Part of me won't let me look as good as nmom.  She is thin, has had many face lifts, a tummy tuck, etc.  She has always been successful and younger looking than she should and rich and thin..............something that I have not been able to get to.  I always live in the shadow of my nmom.  And the fact that I have to "play the game" and be nice at work as I plan my exit strategy just validates the "I lose and she wins" in my head.  The reason I say that is if I speak my mind and try to take charge she just fights with me....so I have come to the point where in the long run I will be better off if I just sit back and let her take the lead.....hopefully making plans to sell.  Plus I know that I know that I know that if I stand up for myself, I am screwing myself financially in the long run because I stand to inherit quite a bit.......so that frustration that I feel deep inside is what drives this monster to overconsume.  It is this false sense of who I am - a self-fulfilling prophecy.......................Kelly will never be as successful, as thin, as beautiful as nmom........

So if I can get over this brain-freeze called stupidity.................I can stop filling that void with food!

[Brigid]

Hops,

I remember when I once lived in a tiny town on the Chesapeake Bay

My paternal grandfather's family was from Havre de Grace (not sure I spelled that correctly) and I have an old newspaper clipping from there which shows a picture of the general store on the main street with my great grandfather and great uncles sitting out front.  The store carried my maiden name.

I absolutely loved James Michener's book Chesapeake.

Brigid

[Hopalong]

 
I've been to Havre de Grace several times (used to live in Bawlamer).
I love the Eastern Shore....

(I bet you like Chesapeake Bay Retrievers, too, Bridg?) Great dogs!

Hops

[Overcomer]

Haven't heard of that town but I have visited my friends (twins) several times since they moved away after the 10th grade (over 30 years ago.......)  One thing that sticks in my mind is the hot, hot, hot humid August.  I have never sweated so much in my life.  I am from the midwest and I never get that hot.........and speaking of, those twins are from a functional family.  Always loved those people.  The parents were "real."  Loving.  They made their kids do chores.  They cooked and had meals together.  It had been 13 years since I had seen them.............but it was like a day had'nt gone by.  One of the twins had a stroke a year ago on Halloween.  Hasn't walked or talked since.  Awful.  Too young.  Three children.

[Hopalong]

Maybe you and your D can take a nice getaway to the Eastern Shore to visit them?
Great time of year to go....

Hops