Food is supposed to be enjoyable.
I hear this a lot. I recently heard this from a client of mine who was having a hard time eating every few hours. His wife has been working with me for a while and he told me/her that eating every few hours was going to be easy. So when I weighed him in and asked how his diet was going two weeks later, his reply was “”I’m having a hard time eating every three hours. I just don’t enjoy the food as much.”
This unfortunately is a pretty typical response.
Ahhhhhh….”enjoyment of food”. 200 years ago food was sustenance first and enjoyment second. A typical day would consist of:
The husband would come home from work with either the meat in hand or to a waiting dinner that has already been prepared by his wife, who used just salt and natural herbs. That was it. That was how people ate. No extra fat, no preservatives, no added flavor. Just real food and real spices.
(DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT SUPPORT NOR CONDONE THE WOMAN DOING ALL THE COOKING OR THE MAN DOING ALL THE “BREAD WINNING”, THIS IS JUST AN EXAMPLE. PLEASE DO NOT SEND ME HATE MAIL.)
Enter Nabisco, fast food, preservatives, etc. and now all food is supposed to be “enjoyable”. Let me tell you what people really mean when they say “food is enjoyable”…”food is fatty and sugary”.
Do you mean to tell me that you don’t find a piece of properly cooked chicken with some salt and pepper, broccoli with cheese melted over top and an apple “un-enjoyable”?
Of course not! You could substitute the chicken out for some other type of protein but that meal would be enjoyable to anyone and everyone (baring vegans). And if it’s not, then you wouldn’t classify it as UN-enjoyable.
Food is supposed to be enjoyable and sustaining. But, long ago people stopped eating for sustenance and started eating just for enjoyment. It isn’t easy to gain weight, you have to actually try…or in some cases prevent yourself from not trying to gain weight. I am not saying that food shouldn’t be enjoyed. But if you’re eating 4-6 meals per day, every meal will not be “enjoyable”. All of your meals should be eaten to keep you healthy first (i.e. as sustaining meals) and enjoyable second. All of the major health diseases can all be traced back to diet, i.e. high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, various types of cancer, etc. Show me someone with high blood pressure and I will show you someone who eats from enjoyment not from sustenance.
So this is what people really mean when they say, “The meals just aren’t enjoyable”. *TRANSLATION* “I miss my fatty, sodium filled, preservative soaked, sugar laden, easy to microwave, pre packaged, LABELED meal.”
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*NOTE ON EACH POINT ABOVE*
Fatty - foods are higher in fat now than they were in the past. “Fat Free” or “low in fat” ring a bell? Why the hell would they put that on a food? Do you think 70 years ago they had eggs that were “low in fat”? Hell no! They had eggs that were NATURE MADE to have high levels of omega-3’s in them…now we have engineered eggs with high levels of O3. Crazy man, we had to engineer a nutrient back in that nature supplied naturally.
Sodium filled - 70 years ago the only foods that were sodium soaked were foods that you would find in a barrel or on a ship. Salt is a natural preservative. Baring beef jerky and other foods that use salt as preservatives, why would you want to eat a food that needs to be preserved?
Preservative soaked - I read in Men’s Health about this woman who would go around and give nutrition lectures. She kept a hamburger that she bought from McDonald’s with her to show her clients. The hamburger had no mold on it and was over 10 years old! What do you need to preserve food for? Meat lasts 3-7 days, veggies 3-7 days and fruit 5-10 days. Guess what…if you’re collecting box tops you’re probably eating a lot of food that you shouldn’t be.
Sugar laden - Did you know that the food industry has engineered water melons to be sweeter? Holy SH!T PEOPLE! ARE YOU SERIOUS! WATER MELON ENGINEERED TO MAKE IT SWEETER! Unfortunately most fruits are now ”grown” that way. The only thing sugar should be added to is coffee/tea, oatmeal, tomato sauce or apple sauce.
Microwaveable - I won’t even go there.
Pre-packaged - when I start to see apples fall of the trees with cellophane on them then I will rescind this statement.
Labeled - show me a cow walking around with a label on its ass and I will show you a stun coach.
