Book Review: The End of Overeating

It should come as no surprise that Americans overeat, but learning all the reasons behind those size 24 pants may startle you. In 'The End of Overeating:Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite' by David A. Kessler, M.D., you'll go on a calorie-packed ride through the haunted house of food and fault.

The first forty pages are heavy with animal study evidence, where scientists stuffed rats with Froot Loops, Cheetos, and fat-laced sugar water, then did things like shock them to see if the newly-rotund rodents would continue to seek out snacks. (I guarantee this is an unrealistic data model, because if they tried that on me, I’d be eating a Twinkie with one hand, and holding up a geek by his throat up against the wall with my other hand, electrodes blasting his balls every few minutes while I ask him “Do you feel like frying fatties now? ZAP! How about now? ZAP!”) I started feeling bad for the literal furballs, and wondered if anyone called Jenny CritterCraig for them.

Eventually Dr. Kessler does add in more human anecdotes, and explores the Harry Potter-worthy arcane art of food science (It’s a pile of chemicals! Poof! It tastes like chocolate!) along with breaking down the menu items of places like Chili’s and Outback with the ‘How Many Times Has It Been Fried?’ game. I learned a lot, and I’ll never touch a Chicken Tender again, not even if it asks for it while dressed in sexy Ranch sauce.

The children’s consumption studies he cites are truly frightening; every parent should be required to read those pages before stepping into a fast food restaurant. I don’t even have kids, but my ovaries cinched up just learning about how food habits have changed across the generations. Of course, when I was a kid, if someone had a nugget, it was because they’d struck gold.

At the end of the book is a section called ‘Food Rehab,’ and I agree with most of his suggestions. Through years of trial and error, I’ve stumbled into many of them on my own, and found success. While ‘eat what you enjoy’ sounds like a no-brainer, once you step into the funhouse-mirror world of dieting and food cravings, especially with trendy diets pushing butter and meat while forbidding carrots, common sense goes out the window. I do disagree with the idea of flipping the switch, as it were, and creating negative emotions with food to break the conditioned hyper-eater’s reward system. Eating without attaching emotion to the experience is what worked for me, and I’m seventy-five pounds lighter. So there, nyah.

‘The End of Overeating’ is an eye-opening read; even if you don’t have hips that could knock out turnstiles and bruise toddlers, peruse this book to see what happens to your food before it goes into your pie-hole. You’ll be surprised, and maybe a little healthier.

Biting the hand that hungers you

I saw a paying blog opportunity at Freelance Writing Jobs this week; apparently, a well-known health magazine is looking for bloggers on the topic, and I wondered, does all my failure count as experience?

I have been on diet after diet in my adult life. The Atkins diet (which worked for a while, but made me really cranky), the diet where you eat mini-meals throughout the day, and, most recently, the South Beach diet, which allowed me to lose a little water weight, but also made me snap on day 6 of phase one. While I haven’t tried the Paleo diet (eating like hunter/gatherers), I do have a male friend on it. The main problem with diets in general is this: I’m so obsessed with what I can and can’t have, so I’m thinking about food constantly. “Can I have carrots? Can I have sprouts? Do I have to eat celery with tuna on it? What happens if I eat a Big Mac and fries? I don’t want a tiny square of dark chocolate, I don’t like dark chocolate, I don’t even care for any chocolate that much. I want a Twinkie!” And so on.

With all these diet plans and books, I was doomed to fail. With the South Beach diet, I was eating stuff I don’t like, plus I believe that sugarless gum should never be listed on a meal plan. That’s silly. With Atkins, the emphasis is on protein, which is good for my blood sugar, but I naturally prefer a less meaty existence. I’ll eat steak maybe once a year, turkey’s okay, can I have my Boca burger or tofu stir-fry now please?

What I have finally learned, after years of starving myself then pigging out again, is to listen to my own body. If left to my own devices, I eat fairly simply, and I’ve finally learned portion control. I could use more veggies, but who couldn’t, really? I love to walk, and will start walking more when the weather cools down. I also learned a trick years ago about treats: I don’t buy boxes of donuts or other goodies; if I want something decadent, I’ll buy it single-serving size at the market, indulge, then go on, remembering to not do that too often.

I feel like a hardened veteran of the food wars, not likely to turn my head over the latest fad. Eat less, sure, but eat foods you like, and move around more.

Hmmm. Maybe I will apply, after all.

Soul food, soul day

Yesterday was one of those serene, wonderful days that come all too rarely in life. I didn't have to go into town, so the morning went delightfully slow with hours to myself. I wrote, then I sat down and read a wonderful newspaper piece by DeNeen L. Brown on soul food. The first-person essay was beautifully written, from the detailed, relaxed preparation of dinner to a vivid trip into the kitchens of her youth. While the essay was primarily syndicated because of Kwanzaa, I realized that the African-American aspect of soul food is but one reflection of Southern cuisine traditions born of necessity. Many of the dishes she mentioned I remember from my own childhood; in fact, a pot of pinto beans bubbled while I read the paper.

I, too, follow the habits of my mother when cooking, and those comforting, cheap dishes are the only ones that I can prepare easily and with skill. I 'look' the beans before washing them, just like she does, then wait to bake the cornbread until just before the beans are finished. Fresh, hot cornbread is yellow, crusty, and definitely not sweet, according to family tradition. As soon as it comes out of the oven, a thin slice along the crust must be cut and swirled with butter, then eaten by the cook. After that, it can set out to cool.

I remember Mom walking up the path, picking greens for poke salad. She loved it. I hated it, because I saw it as the Southern equivalent of the Japanese blowfish; it could be your last meal, unless it was prepared exactly right. I also remember hog jowls and black-eyed peas for New Year's Day, crackers made from leftover pie crust dough, fried chicken made crispy in Mom's favorite cast iron skillet, and the delicious taste of fried green tomatoes and squash, golden brown on each side. My favorite meal on earth is pinto beans, hot cornbread, fried potatoes, and fresh green onions and tomatoes just fifteen minutes out of the garden. Extra bonus: fresh, chilled cucumber slices. Mmmm. One taste of homegrown cukes, and you'll never touch those waxy, green torpedoes from the supermarket again.

On a truly soulful and peaceful day, I thank Ms. Brown for bringing all those excellent memories of my mother's kitchen back to my mind.

Holiday trick and treats

Mmmmmmm, holiday treats. So far this year, we've received delicious banana nut bread, yummy peanut clusters, and rich fudge. And my present to all these talented culinary gift-givers? I'm not cooking for them. It's the kindest thing I can (not) do, really. I'm just not cut out for Betty Crocker. If you pass by the house we used to live in, you'll likely see small round patches in the back yard where nothing grows; this is where I threw out a bad batch of peanut butter cookies about fifteen years ago.

Candy thermometers? I believe that's what doctors use to take the temperature of sick gingerbread men. If I made chocolate peanut clusters, the Army would be at my door with a blank defense contract, asking for more of those 'anti-personnel devices.' 'We couldn't believe it,' a general would tell me. 'Terrorists laughed at our bombs, but turned and ran when we threw these candies at them.'

One optimistic friend gave me a lovely jar filled with pre-mixed fixins' for chocolate-butterscotch drop cookies. Yeah, they're drop cookies, all right; I've already dropped the jar once. The air filled with a lovely, chocolate-sweet scent, and I realized the jar would be more beneficial as a room freshener. I may get drunk on New Year's Eve and decide to try making the cookies, who knows? Wine makes me do crazy things on New Year's Eve; that's how I ended up on classmates.com, checking out how far the homecoming queen has fallen, and where the ex-boyfriends ended up. But for now, I'll just open the jar and wave the smell around, then tear into a bag of Archway's cookies, arrange them on a plate, and call it a day.