Wherefore Art Thou LTHForum.com?

Wherefore Art Thou LTHForum.com?

Though many are becoming more conscious about the food they eat, there’s little doubt that people on this forum are more conscious of (concerned about, fixated upon, obsessed with) food than most civilians.

Why’s that?



We all have our own reasons for focusing on food as much as we do. I was talking to some guests at Pacific Garden Mission last week, and one of them told me:

A lot of the people come here from addictions and they’re trying to stop addictions and in order to stop you have to fill that void and usually food is the first thing we gravitate to…

Food (like material possessions, sex, and other fun things) can be used to fill a psychological or spiritual void, no doubt, and this started me thinking about why I gravitate toward food.

Last week, I had a hernia operation. Talking to my parents after surgery, I asked them if they knew how I got the hernia, which I’ve had for over half-a-century. They confessed that after I was born, my mom didn’t give me solid food for many months. So as a hungry neonate, I cried a lot. A real lot. My tummy was empty and it made me unhappy. After weeks of near continuous wailing, I literally busted a gut. Then my parents took me to a doctor who sagely said, Give this boy solid food. So they did and I stopped crying. The hernia was a memento of what I think can fairly be called early childhood starvation, a situation I may still be trying to correct. So, maybe that’s why I think about food every waking moment. Or maybe there’s more to it.

Certainly, we all have our reasons why food is a controlling passion in our lives.

Hammond

How interesting and unusual, perhaps gratifying (if it doesn't fill you with retroactive rage and resentment) to come across so concrete an explanation.
I'm sitll searching for one.
I think about food ceaselessly---reward myself with it, console myself with it, distract, and procrastinate with it. It is the medium or currency I use to give of myself, or thank others.
I often spend the time I'm eating a long-planned meal planning the next one. I go to bed thinking about what I'll make for breakfast.
And I don't really know why. Especially since I often don't savor the food I spend so much thought on, but devour it as if I can't actually relax until it's gone and i'm reflecting back on it.
I come from a family of wonderful and generous women cooks. The food was good and there was plenty of it. Nor was our food a substitute for love---we were hugged and kissed and "validated" out the wazoo.
So what' s my "issue?"
I still don't know.

Glad to hear you're OK, David (at least I hope that's the subtext of your statement.)

FWIW, doctors generally advise not to give solid food to babies until they're 4 months old or so...maybe that's why Americans are all struggling with their waistlines.

Trying to avoid hubris, but the topic brings to mind this brief thread.

I've always loved food. The reason it because a preoccupation? After leaving college and getting married I had to (or thought I had to) shop and cook and produce meals every day. It shocked me how time-consuming it was. The only way not to go nuts was to make it fun, turn it into a hobby if you will.

interesting anecdote, david.

i was a slightly premature baby and my mom smoked during the pregnancy. i weighed about five pounds, some ounces at birth.

i also (i'm told) had some sort of sucking issue that prevented me from being able to breast or bottle feed. so, like you, i wailed all the damn time for the first however many weeks of my life. my parents relay the story now as funny, but i'm sure it wasn't at the time.

finally, after a few months, some doctor suggested that they give me milk in a cup. i drank it down and stopped crying. that's when the suck/swallow issue was retroactively diagnosed.

well, as you may have predicted from this tale, i am now just as obsessed with food as the others above. i'm a trained chef, have worked in restaurants for the past 15 years, and when i'm not working, i'm eating or cooking or thinking about food. and i weigh well over 300 pounds.

something to think about....for sure.

It's funny that you should have the Pacific Garden photo on your post. Nance Klehm (an old friend of mine but also someone who has been getting some props and love from various lth folks of late) runs the greenhouses there, or maybe just the vermiculture/composting program there with the mission residents. You can buy worm bins from them and the money goes back to feeding everyone at PG. But how this all circles back is if I know Nance like I know Nance, she is probably trying to teach people on the fringes that good nutrition and healthy foods are best for anyone, but especially people trying to shake an addiction. She will be showing them how to harvest burdock to cleanse their liver or make a tea of this or that that we step over in the cracks in the sidewalk. And she will encourage them with her brassy style and hopefully that will inspire somebody or pull someone out of a dark day or just give them the chance to you know, play with worms . . .

bjt

bjt wrote:It's funny that you should have the Pacific Garden photo on your post. Nance Klehm (an old friend of mine but also someone who has been getting some props and love from various lth folks of late) runs the greenhouses there, or maybe just the vermiculture/composting program there with the mission residents. You can buy worm bins from them and the money goes back to feeding everyone at PG. But how this all circles back is if I know Nance like I know Nance, she is probably trying to teach people on the fringes that good nutrition and healthy foods are best for anyone, but especially people trying to shake an addiction. She will be showing them how to harvest burdock to cleanse their liver or make a tea of this or that that we step over in the cracks in the sidewalk. And she will encourage them with her brassy style and hopefully that will inspire somebody or pull someone out of a dark day or just give them the chance to you know, play with worms . . .

bjt

it's called the six degrees of Nancy Klehm. you know I ran into her on the street in Puerta Vallarta once? that's how much she gets arouind. and how do you walk into a Home Depot and not think of her when greeted by all those orchids?

but back on topic.....
A good topic and a good piece of writing, Mr. Hammond.

This is a topic that fascinates me to no end. My take, however, is somewhat different. I was pretty much overweight all my life…top end around 280. The act of eating had a soothing effect, but invariably those feelings turned to guilt, shame and self loathing. Born…the vicious circle. Food was my love and enemy, and I was never comfortable in the pleasure of its company. Then after losing 100 lbs a couple of times and regaining the weight plus more, I put myself under a surgeon’s knife. I did my homework, and picked the surgery( http://www.duodenalswitch.com ) that work best for me, and the best surgeon (in my opinion) to do the procedure. I cannot over eat my surgical procedure, and I will never regain my excess weight. (Note…I now weigh 128 lbs.) Now here comes the interesting part…what I regained was a new appreciation for food, only this time without guilt, shame and self loathing. I make the planning and preparation of food just as important as savoring the product. Since I can only eat small portions of food, this is essential to help extend the joy and pleasure of the food experience. I am seven years out from my weight loss surgery, and the mental metamorphous to where I am currently has been a long process. Heck, I still have moments of frustration about portion size. Where did it begin? Why does it begin, this love for food? I still don’t know. I’m pretty sure I didn’t starve as baby! I could claim genetics. I come from a long line of big people, and my son now also falls into that category. Maybe it is (at least in part) due to the evolution of the American diet tending towards sweets, fried food, soda, fast food and large portions. Or perhaps it is the one factor in life that we have complete control over. It could be a combination of all of the above, or something else. All I know is my experience, and I have to share with you that it really feels great to finally find some sort of peace in my relationship with food. Please don’t dislike me for this. While I have had many blessings in my life, my life story has had some epic moments. Whatever I have wanted out of life, I have had to work hard for it. I also must say that finding a peaceful relationship with food does not cure all of life’s ailments. It does, however, give you more energy and power to focus on all other aspects of living. Now stepping down from my soapbox!

Your post is certainly thought provoking Mr Hammond. I've often thought the same when trying to be a little introspective, comparing my quest for food with the average person's. It comes up often when I walk by an overly crowded mediocre restaurant and ask myself, "why would people continue to go there."

I wouldn't say I'm obsessed, only due to my constant self observation and gut check to not be obsessed. I don't want to come off as a food snob to my friends and family, only because it seems self indulgent and gratuitous. That's not how I was raised. I was raised on really functional food but also the occasional great meal that seemed to be made with such ease by either my grandmothers or mother. I enjoyed watching their skill and the creative process, which is to me, like watching a journeyman carpenter ply their trade. It could be that 10,000 hour, time on task thing but it truly is a thing of beauty.

Another part of the equation for me is that of timing. Our culture (the US in particular) has experienced a food renaissance of sorts. You can't give me a La Quercia product and expect me to go back to Carl Budding ham. The line has been drawn, erased and drawn again, and the bar has been raised - there's no going back for me. Overall though, I hope we try to slow down a bit. Some of the food fads are going too quickly and we're ignoring great food or dishes that have been deemed "out of style." It takes longer to create a truly great food culture - give it a chance before moving on to the next thing.

I love the quest for perfection by food artisans but not the trendy subsequent marketing of "natural" "organic" or "local" foods. For me, anyway, I feel it's responsible to always consider these things but please don't label me as such. I try to temper my enthusiasm with practicality. I grow some of my vegetables but I'm not a gardener by any sorts, I support the local farmer's product but not exclusively, I will buy organically but weigh the methods and origin, and express my enthusiasm for superior product without trying to alienate those around me.

Food does fill a void for me; whether its a creative process (stuck in a corporate world), fond memory (my grandmother's family meals), or continuing education on a topic that I find interesting. Thanks to LTH for providing a channel for my interests. I guess you can say that LTH has been my food "pusher man" from time to time. Cheers.

This is a fascinating topic for me, one I think of often. I am interested in food. I find it gives me pleasure. Yet when I was growing up, I was very skinny and hardly ate anything. I hated most food for some reason, I was not trying to lose weight, I just didn't like what was put down before me. Now over the years, I have become too well padded. I have some thin friends and ask them about food. They just are not that interested in food. They can take it or leave it. They do eat of course but don't look at food as pleasure at least not on a day to day basis. I asked one of my slender friends what she ate for lunch which she does every day at home. Her reply "a half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a cup of tea, (no cream or sugar), a piece of fruit, and a cookie or two if I have it".
That's it. Every day. I would not be able to subsist like that. I look forward to my meals and eat something different every day. Another friend chided me for eating a sweet roll for breakfast. She said "I never eat anything like that...I never eat pastry....I don't need to try to lose the weight. I stay away from anything like that". She says basically she eats to live and passes up all the rich stuff, and the goodies every day and only indulges on special occasions. Me, a day without a sweet or two is like not living. Go figure.

Yeah, I have an adminstrator that is a lot like one of your friends. She brings a half a cheese sandwich to work everyday...that is it! It is rumored that she just smells it for lunch!

One of the same friends was blabbering to me all year " I love key lime pie" "i love key lime pie" "key lime pie is my favorite". blah blah blah..... So much so I got sick of hearing how much she liked key lime pie.

So I decided that since she was coming to my house for Xmas, I would make a home made key lime pie. I searched the recipes and did the research, got the ingredients and made a beautiful key lime pie with a homemade graham cracker crust. I topped the pie with a layer of freshly whipped cream, whipped by hand. It was a lovely pie and delicious but I can't say key lime pie is my favorite.

So when the pie is served my friend is very excited and started to eat it. Then she said "how did you make this pie and what is in it". When I told her it had many egg yolks, she just about froze up. She stopped eating the pie and said to her husband "honey do you want to share this piece of pie with me". She was afraid to eat a piece of pie that was her favorite just because it had too many egg yolks...she could gain weight....spike her cholesteral.....die early....Yikes. To her, the pie became poison. This woman is in her mid sixties and is five foot nine and weighs about a hundred and forty pounds..............I get tired of the food police.

Some elderly people have been convinced everything is bad for you so they eat nothing and are malnourished.

This is a great topic.
I too often leave one meal thinking of the next.
And while I don't have the luxury of as much money or time as I'd like to create what I'd like for every meal, when I do, YUM.
I have always struggled with my weight, and come to the conclusion that I am a basically healthy person whom G_d did not intend to be skinny as a stick. I try to include some healthy foods, but as I like to say:

Sometimes you have to feed your soul.

I understand well the dichotomy between eating to living and living to eat. I try to moderate my tendency towards the latter, lest I creep over 200 lbs, and I try to discourage my husbands tendency towards the former. (After 26 years of marriage I have made significant progress, witnessed by his happy attendance at many LTH events).
I feel sorry for folks who are unable or unwilling to enjoy the pleasures of the table.
I do not believe the powers that be would have given us this bounty of beautiful and delicious food if he/she/it/whatever did not want us to take enjoyment from it.
It's why on holidays and sabbath when we slow down we say a thank you prayer for the fruit of the vine and for the bread from the earth. Of course we also know that the MOT (members of the Tribe) are famous for having good appetites and not to shy away from the table.
It's a quality they share with most peoples who ring the mediterranean.
I've always felt when it comes to the philosophy of food, Spaniards, Greeks, and most notably the Italians were really very similar in terms of emphasis on the family table and the food=love thing with the Jews.
But wow, I've gone very far afield, and created a really long post, so I'll call it a day.
Great topic, David.

irisarbor wrote:It's a quality they share with most peoples who ring the mediterranean.

I so did not read that correctly the first time around.