Re-learning to eat

I ate half a chicken for lunch yesterday, with steamed vegetables and some rice, and walked away from the table feeling good about what I’d eaten. Let me explain.

I grew up as an American boy in the Midwest in the 1960s – I know, ancient history for some of you. The country was still learning about nutrition, and one of the recent “discoveries” was the four basic food groups: milk, grain, protein, and fruit. If you had a couple of those every day, you’d be healthy and all-American! The government promoted this concept, and pushed it hard in magazines, books, and in school. So we were good boys and girls and ate what we were given.

In my case, it ate whatever I got (a habit I am still trying to break). And it was good – my mother was a wonderful cook, and I loved everything we had! I didn’t like mushrooms, but that didn’t show up my plate very often so it wasn’t really an issue. In the summer we made sandwiches for lunch – bologna (you know, baloney), peanut butter and jelly (mostly homemade) - with potato chips, and it didn’t get much more exotic than that, but it didn’t need to. 

Many times our neighbor, Mr. Swink, would bring over a batch of tomatoes from his garden, and there was no better treat than to walk around the yard, tomato in one hand and salt shaker in the other, and eat a ripe, fresh-from-the-garden tomato, juice dripping everywhere and you didn’t care at all. Oh my, so good. Most of the store-bought tomatoes now are factory grown, and have been bred to look more attractive, which happened to remove most of the flavor, a terrible loss. Buy tomatoes from the farmer’s market or the truck on the side of the road, and don’t worry if it’s oddly shaped or has some green in it – those are the best!

We rarely ate out when I was a kid. First, there was no need. You ate meals at home, in the evening, together at the table and talked about the day. This was normal and we did it every day. Second, it was expensive to take a family of nine out to eat, so when we did it was an amazing treat. I remember my first store-bought hamburger! There was a grocery store at the other side of town (a small town, it had sides but wasn’t big enough for ends or corners!!). I don’t remember the name of the store, but they had a grill and you could buy 10 hamburgers for $1.  I’d seen commercials on TV for McDonalds, who promoted the “All American Meal” as a hamburger, fries, and Coke, but we didn’t have a McDonalds, so this was an amazing treat the day my dad brought home a bag of burgers, one for each of us and I think he got the extra, as was fair.  My first fast food - oh so good!

Another place we went occasionally was in the neighboring town, Flat River Missouri. On some Sundays after church we would go to a place with a smorgasbord, essentially an all you can eat buffet, which would have been a bargain for our parents and a dream come true for us boys. All the food you could eat – wow! You could get almost anything – roast beef and mashed potatoes and gravy, fried chicken, fruits, salad, french fries, you name it. You left full.

Anyway, we ate well. There was always enough, but I somehow came away from childhood with a terrible food disorder: see it smell it want it disease (SSWD for short). If I could see it or smell it I had to have it. Once I got some, I had to eat all of it and if there was more I just had to have more – you know, just in case. This wasn’t a problem til I was in my early 30s and had my first desk job, which also involved shift work, and I learned I didn’t sleep well during the day after a mid-shift. I was too tired to get out and exercise and be active, and I ate round the clock to stay awake, and gained 30 pounds in a year. My SSWD was very active during that period!

Not only that, but the American diet had changed! Not only have we found out lately that the 4 Basic Food groups was not a very good balance for us, but this new invention came along: convenience and fast foods!  McDonald’s was followed by Burger Chef, Burger King, Dairy Queen, and more. Soon this thing called pizza got to be popular, and there are now nearly as many pizza places as burger joints. As all these fast food outlets were showing up, there were TV dinners – frozen meals you could pop in the OVEN and 45 minutes later you had a hot meal! Wow – innovation! Then the junk food explosion came with 5000 varieties of sweet treats of all kinds, shapes and flavors.

And the bad news? None of this crap has any significant nutritional value. It’s predominantly made of lab chemicals and preservatives. A guy put a McDonald’s hamburger in his pocket and found it 9 years later – looked exactly the same. This stuff should not be classified as food, because nothing will eat if but us (and our dogs because they love anything we love). Bugs won’t eat this stuff because they don’t know what it is. And that’s what I grew up on, thinking I was eating well. But back to my half a chicken!

I ate half a chicken because it was a normal sized chicken. Not one of the artificially grown and bred super-sized, antibiotic-fed chickens you get at home. A chicken breast I buy at Walmart today has more meat on it than this entire half a chicken I had, and that’s the point. A leg/thigh/breast/wing piece used to be a big serving, but now it’s not only still considered normal, but each piece is massive.  If I eat a wing/breast/thigh/leg combination at home (and I have) I’m just killing myself with quantity. 

Since I got to Saudi Arabia I’ve been eating freshly-made food, steamed or grilled or fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, and one meat serving a day, and doing very well on that. I do have a granola bar with fruit in the morning, but it’s natural ingredients, no sugar added. I have a balanced, main meal at lunch, and fruit, vegies and nuts for supper. I’m actually doing pretty well with this. It’s been easy to do – I don’t crave anything, and went past all the sweets and donut shops in the mall yesterday without a twinge of SSWD kicking in!

Sorry this is so long, and thanks if you made it all the way to the end. Good eating!