Necessary Treats
It’s weird to see how placing limitations on a person’s diet uncovers a host of psychological attachments to food. You look at people with eating disorders and think “Oh, now that person has psychological issues with food. I eat like a normal person so I don’t have problems with food.” Maybe you’re a little picky about vegetables, and maybe you love desserts, but as long as you are visibly healthy and are eating average amounts and keeping them down, no one thinks a thing of it.
Then something happens and you are suddenly unable to eat most of the food you used to take for granted. All of a sudden you start craving cheese and chocolate, and dreaming about ice cream. You get weepy at the sight of pizza. If you are having a bad day, it is an absolute tragedy that you can’t have a cup of hot chocolate to comfort yourself. All your old favorites become “the bad guys” that will make you violently ill if you enjoy them.
And suddenly the boring ordinary food becomes “the good guys.” The vegetables and fruits are the things you can eat without limit. They won’t make you sick and they fill you up when you are hungry. It messes with your head. Food is suddenly the biggest thing in your life, and you realize it always has been a big deal and you didn’t even know it.
Fortunately your taste buds follow along behind, learning to like the foods you eat the most; even if you don’t really care for something, you have to eat it or go hungry.
It really gives you a new appreciation for the simple foods God made to nourish your body. It makes you thankful for the abundance here in America, and brings a new awareness of what it means to be hungry and to search for food. It shows you how much you lean on food to comfort you, to give you pleasure, to relieve boredom. It wakes you up to how over-processed our food is, and how many chemicals we ingest every day without question. It’s life-changing in a way, because you realize that you will never see food the same way again.
At the same time, you realize what an absolute gift the ability to appreciate food is. It is fuel for our bodies, but it adds so much to life. The tastes, textures, colors of foods are a blessing that is interwoven into our culture and life’s experiences. When we share food with family and friends it is part of our bonding and interaction. Cooking and tasting good food is a joy not to be taken lightly.
Figuring out ways to keep the fun in food has to be part of this journey; nutrition and health are important, but so is quality of life and our family memories. Desserts are as necessary as bean sprouts, and that’s okay.
