Thinking about food

The Sunday NY Times Magazine was all about food this week. Good stuff. An interesting article about calorie restriction and the apparent slowing of aging that it causes. If we all ate 25% less than we do, well some of us would have to eat a higher percentage less, we could slow down aging, and drastically reduce heart disease and cancer. Without drugs or even exercise. Problem is, most people would rather die, or at least just take the drugs, than cut 25% of their calories. It is pretty extreme, I guess. Most people that are at a healthy weight to begin with lose 15% of their body weight in the first year of 25% reduction and then plateau. That means that I would weigh about 136 pounds. I would not look well at 136 pounds. I know this because I've been as low as 139 pounds, when I was training really hard and profoundly anemic, and I didn't look well. But I was fast riding my bike and, evidently would have been healthier if I had stayed that weight. If I didn't die from one of my semi-weekly sinus infections or bronchitis. Interesting study nonetheless.

Michael Pollan did a piece where he asked people to send him any rules that they follow concerning what to eat or not eat. There were some good ones. A woman by the name of Michelle Poirot invoked a Zen teaching that says "when you drink tea, just drink tea." In other words, be mindful of your eating, don't eat while you are doing something else. I'm bad about this. I almost always read or watch TV while I'm eating. I need to work on that. Another one that I really thought was good was from Laura Kelley and she said that she uses a rule of economics to avoid overeating. "The law of diminishing marginal utility reminds me that each additional bite is generally less satisfying than the previous bite," she says, so she remembers to slow down and really enjoy the first bites and then stop eating sooner. That's good, I'm going to use that one. There were other good ones, like don't eat anything you are not prepared to kill yourself, and I've thought of that one but I don't really want give up meat all together. One guy said that he doesn't eat anything that is pretending to be something else, which is actually one of my own guidelines. I don't like turkey presented as anything other than turkey. I don't like turkey sausage or turkey burger or turkey ham. If I want to eat turkey, I will and if I must have those other things, then I'll suffer the consequences and enjoy the real thing. This is why I like sausage, bacon, and hot dogs; because they are honest foods. They are not good for you but they taste good so you eat them in moderation and get on with it. Hmm, now I'm hungry.