I love good cakes and pies and other calorie-rich baked goods. I’m an award-winning baker (admittedly, the Lane County Fair is a small pond) with an international reputation due to having taken my offerings to numerous potlucks for international students and civic functions over the course of the years. Yet, despite the potential unlimited availability of premium chocolate cake and homemade strudel, I rarely overindulge, and I’ve never felt I came close to having an eating disorder. I’ve lost my youthful figure, but I’m not seriously overweight. Food of the most tempting description doesn’t seem to be addictive for me.
Over the last decade I’ve rented out rooms to people, at least three of whom did have significant eating disorders. The behavior of these women puzzled me. I would leave my homemade cakes and cookies out on the common kitchen table, with an invitation to all my housemates to partake, and invariably the normal eaters helped themselves, while the overeaters and bulimics avoided what was offered. Being a recovering alcoholic, I can understand why a person would want to avoid temptation, lest it lead to compulsive overeating. I did ask these housemates if they would prefer I not display the goodies so openly, but they indicated they had no problem with them. Evidently they didn’t, at least with those particular items, because I never noticed mysterious after-hours disappearances.
I did notice large numbers of empty containers for commercial bakery products in the garbage. My housemates were eating glazed donuts and Twinkies on the sly and secreting the evidence in the trash, in much the same way that an alcoholic will dispose of beer cans. I’m not notably snoopy, but these things come to light when I’m trying to make room in a communal trash can that is overflowing. I also noticed that the products were mainly things that I would not personally eat even if I were fairly hungry, because I find them cloyingly sweet, with a flavor undertone that’s disagreeable.
There was no obvious reason for my housemates’ classic addictive behavior. I’m not a food puritan and I don’t offer unsolicited advice on other people’s poor eating habits. Neither were the normal eaters in the household. Why would an otherwise sane person have no apparent trouble walking past a freshly-baked delicious cake made with natural (though not necessarily healthy) ingredients, only to go to great lengths to furtively consume a commercial additive-laden product?
I have concluded that the evidence points to the deliberate introduction of addictive additives into commercial bakery products, and that the culprit or culprits are not traditional dessert ingredients, in the proportions recommended by the Joy of Cooking. My mother came from good German stock, and she had a repertoire of family recipes, heavy on the butter, eggs and sugar, that she whipped up for special occasions. The people on that side of the family tended to look a bit “corn fed” but nobody was markedly obese and nobody was prone to other eating disorders.
There is no shortage of advice on the Internet about how to avoid food addiction, and no shortage of pontification about the obesity epidemic. The problem, to my way of thinking, is that most of this advice ignores the fact that the majority of Americans and (except in wartime) Western Europeans have had abundant access to sugar and animal fats for at least the last century, but the obesity epidemic and the proliferation of addictive eating behavior in general is much more recent. That points to some factor or factors that became prevalent only recently – and also tends to rule out, as a major force, factors so recent that the epidemic was well under way before they came into play. It may be, for example, that genetically modified corn and soybeans adversely affect human health, but a direct link to eating disorders, as is claimed by some nutritionists, is unlikely.
Whatever that something is – and high fructose corn syrup is highly suspect, though probably not the only factor – it seems it is not in my award-winning sugar-laden applesauce spice cake, but is in the stuff our local supermarket bakery churns out because whatever the craving that drives my housemates to compulsive addictive behavior, my cake doesn’t feed it.
Image Credit
Photo by Martha Sherwood. All rights reserved.
Martha, I have no problem with this article as I do have an eating disorder of long standing. I am an anorexic whose drug of choice is sugar in all forms. I also know from long experience that in times of stress I can fool myself rather easily about my intake. what an odd thing, to be an anorexic addicted to sugar! But you know me and my quirks. And I feel this article is in the spirit of scientific inquiry, not meant to hurt anyone. By the way, sucrose is gross and way too sweet.
As an alcoholic I understand all too well what it is like to be in the grip of addiction and I know that no amount of will power or consideration for others would keep me out of a room-mate’s booze, once I had taken the first drink. As long as I’m sober, cooking sherry in the common food cupboard and the knowledge that someone may have liquor in their bedroom doesn’t tempt me, but when I slipped and started drinking beer on the sly in my own bedroom, I’d go after my sister’s booze when I ran out. Consequently, when I am aware that a food addict is consuming bakery cake on the sly, and my own cake does not disappear, I conclude that my cake does not include the addictive ingredient(s).
Martha, I’m sure that I’m one of the women you speak of in your article. I’m not sure why you chose to ask these questions in such a public forum, but I’ll answer them from my perspective and experience.
First of all, I would much prefer home-baked goods to commercial bakery goods. The flavor and quality are almost always far superior. However, with an eating disorder, there is a strange, fear-laden knowledge that a normal portion will not be nearly enough. For those of us who are binge-eaters, there is also huge shame involved. Those two factors lead me to: 1) Make sure I have my own supply, and not use the food of a friend or family member. (It’s bad enough to feel enslaved to the behavior, without hogging someone else’s portion), and 2) hide the evidence.
And I have to say, one of the reasons for wanting such secrecy is exactly what has happened here: fear of judgement, and exposure, which often leads to more judgement and ridicule.
This culture loves to hate fat people, even while it recognizes that we make up a growing percentage of the population. I am not one of those who advocate “fat serenity”. But I am so very weary of fighting what feels to be a losing battle with a life-long addiction on the one hand and a society that hates me for losing the battle on the other, which feeds my own considerable shame and self-hate. And doing it mostly in silence and alone.
I am not proud of my behavior. It is compulsive and irrational and maddening. But I guess I would have hoped for a little more understanding, and, yes, kindness, from a friend who has extensive knowledge of the addictive process.