Here’s a thought: What does food mean to you? Does it control you? Or do you control it? I don’t know why I am suddenly thinking about food and what it represents to me. Maybe it is because I did the groceries today and my bill came to $250. That seems exorbitant to me when I really think about it.
I come by my love of different foods honestly. My mother was an amazing cook. She would spend hours in the kitchen cooking everything: chili sauce, pies, cakes, cookies, and the list goes on. She could cook a meal on a dime or spend a fortune. My mom loved to cook and she loved to eat. She wasn’t obese either; she did have some issues with her weight but she controlled that. Perhaps that is where my problems with food come from. Food is love.
Growing up we had to eat everything on our plates. “What do you think those starving children in China are doing?” my mother would ask. “Do you think they would leave anything on their plates?” Frankly, I didn’t think they would, but sometimes our dinner plates could or should have fed a small village in China without a problem. That is just how generous mom was with her portions.
Today it is all about smaller portions and cutting back and cutting out everything that is bad for you. Now we have problems like bulimia and anorexia and obesity. What has changed? We are as far as I know eating less but getting larger. We are trying to control what goes into our mouths but finding it more difficult to do so. Is it the food that has changed or is it us? I think it might have to do with the two things together: our relationship with food and our indulgence in it.
Our children never play outside anymore; they are glued to one screen or another. Exercise now has to be planned and executed by a professional. No more riding your bike or walking to your friend’s house or just exploring the neighborhood. Those are things of the past. And so our food, as well as our lifestyle, has made us unhealthy. More packaged meals, less time exercising, along with more sugar and more white flour that go into everything we eat.
Still, people are starving all over the world, it seems. Except North America: We are expanding. We are expanding our waist lines and the lines at the doctor’s. There is fast food, and slow cooked food – and food courts? Food courts. What does that conjure up in your mind? A place where you can go and eat anything you might desire. A place that is fast, easy and not very good for your health. Sounds like what we used to call the town tramp – fast easy and not very healthy. Yet we continue to revel in the food we eat. We dine out more and cook at home less. We eat standing up, watching television, while we drive? The days of being home by six for dinner are over. The days of chewing your food one hundred times before you swallow are really over. Most families have so many different schedules that a meal at the dinning room table is reserved now for Christmas and Easter, maybe Thanksgiving.
We live in a fast-paced, rigorous culture that shows no mercy to those that like to indulge in various meals during the week. There is too much going on in our lives in order for us to slow down and take the time and care to prepare a meal that is both nutritional and tasty.
What do I like about food? I crave different foods at different times. I love salty and I love sweet, and sometimes I love them together. I have struggled with my weight for years and only now in my fifties have decided that I can’t struggle with it anymore. I have given that up. All the different diets. They all help you loose weight but then what do you do when you have that lost weight return to you like one of those crazy pigeons. It’s like your body is a homing device for fat. So it’s time to get sane about food; after all, I am a mature, sensible adult. I can deal with this issue. No longer can I eat certain foods; when or if I do I suffer for days. So that takes care of a lot of dangerous foods I might be interested in. Old age sometimes gives us fair warning.
So now I like to think of food as sustenance. Something to give me energy to get me though my day. I try to stay away from mom’s cooking style of generous helpings and enormous desserts.
Food is love. In our house when I was a child it was what our mother made us that showed she cared. In my house it’s what I don’t make that show my children I care.
Image Credit
“A little bit of everything” by charlottedallot. Creative Commons Flickr, some rights reserved.
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