Conscious Eating

I happened to catch Michael Pollan on Oprah last night. What timing! I am more convinced than ever that the reason Americans are so fat is they have been convinced by the food industry that the fillers in low-fat foods are healthy, that faster is better and that having any food any time of year is better. But perhaps we eat more because our taste buds are never satisfied? 

I immediately purchased "Food Rules," "In Defense of Food," and "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and am so excited!

As an experiment and a good-bye to fast food, today I had a McDonalds Angus burger. As I chewed slowly, I forced myself to chew it slowly consciously so that I had a good idea of what it was I would miss and liked. I found that the initial flavor seemed ok. Nice mushrooms, cheesy cheese and moist burger. Then I noticed the salt. And then the slick oil. And then the extremely bland and tasteless aftertaste. Wait. It didn't taste at all good once the initial first or second chews were past. Once I had chewed each bite 5 to 10 times the flavor was gone and it wasn't at all good. Then by the 15th chew, it was really flavorless except the salt. Good riddance. It was an excellent exercise in conscious eating. Usually I eat these types of foods so fast and on the run that I never even get to the 10th chew or even stop to taste what I'm eating. The first few seconds of the bite are all that I taste and this over-processed food only has a mildly good flavor at first. I remember back when I had gone several years without eating fast food, the smell of it made me ill. I can't wait to get to that feeling again, because I know the way I eat when I'm busy is a big part of my issue.

So from now on, whether I'm eating right or wrong, I'm going to focus on really tasting the food and analyzing how it tastes. I'm also going to think about how good the food is for me (I can excuse some less-than-stellar taste if it is really good for me). I already won't buy a fresh tomato out of season, preferring the canned tomatoes that were probably in pretty good shape at the time--as long as there aren't any additives. And some frozen vegetables have nothing but the vegetable in them.

Good bye fast food.