In my quest to lose weight, get healthier and prepare for Life After Surgery, I actually timed myself at breakfast yesterday. My grandmother, God love her, said something along the lines of making pancakes on Sundays and since we were visiting, she wanted to make them. Now, not only do I not ever really pass up an opportunity for food, I certainly don't pass up a chance for Grandma's Cooking.
I had the good luck of getting the first batch of three pancakes. I carefully doled out one tablespoon of Olivo spread (half the calories of butter!) and lightly drizzled the Aunt Jemimah Lite syrup over my triple stack of flapjacks. 'You never did use a lot of syrup," my grandmother commented from the stove.
Then, I checked the clock. 8:55 AM.
With Grandma still manning the griddle and my Grandfather poring over the NY Daily News, I sat there with my plate of pancakes and made a conscious effort to not inhale them. First, I cut the stack in half. I looked at them, curiously, then I started cutting all around the crispy edges and taking miniscule bites and then just chewing, chewing, chewing, chewing, chewing until my jaw ached.
At 9:00 AM I'd finished the first half. Five minutes? It felt like forever. I dragged out the second half of the pancakes until 9:13 AM. It felt like torture. There was a Corningware full of extra pancakes right in front of me and it had just taken me eighteen minutes to eat three pancakes. For the sake of comparison, let me just say that in eighteen minutes I probably could have eaten at least six or seven, not just three. I allowed myself one more and made it take me another seven minutes to finish. By that point, I was actually full. Not stuffed, but definitely satisfied. This is interesting because I don't think I've ever only eaten 4 of my Grandmother's pancakes.
Maybe there is some truth to slow eating. But regardless, slow eating is something I am going to have to train myself to do because once I have the surgery, I will not physically be able to inhale my food like I'm used to doing without there being negative consequences.
Which got me thinking about the Slow Food Movement. If you take the politics out of it, this boils down to eating whole, local foods that are organically grown and taking the time to prepare and enjoy them. It also brought me right back to Michael Pollan and his "In Defense of Food", the premise of which is: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." The idea that we should go back to eating the types of things our grandparents (and since I'm so lucky to still have mine, I'd even go back a generation further and say, my great-grandparents!) would recognize, and nothing else.
I've always had excuses as to why I can't shop at farmer's markets or buy only organic produce. Yes, it's more expensive than buying the stuff that's been sprayed with pesticides and God only knows what else. But at the end of the day, if we were eating the quantities of food we were meant to eat; eating slower so we actually allowed ourselves to feel full and not pushing our plates away with the signal that it's empty; and eating whole, real foods...we wouldn't be in the predicament we're in.
Now, I am not pointing fingers or telling people how to live their lives. I most certainly couldn't do this if I wasn't planning to have surgery to physically restrict how much I can eat. I also don't think I could do this if I had a large family or a spouse who ate really large meals. The truth is that I can do my part here and that every small effort can lead to bigger changes down the line.
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