I recently started reading the blog Wise Bread after it was recommend by another blog I regularly read. Last week they wrote about "How To Avoid Recession Pounds" borrowing the term for weight gained during a down economy from this Yahoo article. The Wise Bread suggestions all seem reasonable although most of them are not advice I would give a client. However, suggestions 10, 11, and 12 start to get to one of my favorite points about healthy eating:
10. Talk. And be social, if you can. Conversation is a great way to slow a meal down, not to mention enjoy it. I think of my friends from Europe who have these enormous meals drawn out over several hours, and an important part is good conversation.
11. Eat with people who either share your dietary goals or have already achieved them. There is strength numbers, not to mention inspiration by way of guilt.
12. Turn off the TV. Nothing is better at shutting off your brain and encouraging mindless eating. So just turn it off and read, or better yet, talk to your table mates.
What do all these suggestions have in common? They encourage you to spend more time with your food. In "In Defense of Food" one of Pollan's more controversial suggestions is "Pay More, Eat Less". Yet, Pollan points out that it isn't necessarily the cost that makes you eat less but the things that go with a higher cost. He cites a few examples of how food preparation has gotten cheaper due to new technology or outsourcing preparation to someone else (most likely a factory).
One of Pollan's examples it that in 1980 less that 10% of American households had a microwave but by 1999 83% of American homes had adopted this new technology. This particular statistic comes from a study titled "Why Have Americans Become More Obese?" in the Journal of Economic Perspectives. You can find the article online as a free PDF and its ripe with interesting statistics.
The authors theorize that the increase in obesity does have to do with an increase in consumption of food but that that increase is caused by the production of food being outsourced outside the home. They also point out that this outsourcing has resulted in an increase of processed food driven by industrialization of food preparation. They also note that the resulting reduction in price has been beneficial to some people who previously could not afford sufficient amounts of food.
Finally, Polan also points out that in the 1960s Americans spent 17.5% of their income on food compared to 5.2%. While anecdotal I have seen these ideas in my own eating habits. When I am sticking with the Zone or a Paleo diet I am more picky about my foods, I eat less, but I spend way more time planning and preparing my meals. However, we do not really see an incease in the total cost of food from month to month when we eat better. We may spend more on certain items but our efforts at efficency keep the price down. Things like always eating the left overs and using every piece of what we buy. Why throw away a chicken carcass when you can make broth out of it that can be frozen for next week's soup. Joy of Cooking to the rescue.
In the Yahoo article that started this thread one of the experts has this to say:
"The answer lies in affordable but nutrient-rich foods such as ground beef, beans, milk, nuts, cheese, carrots, potatoes, canned tomatoes, soups, and rice," he said, calling it "a diet for a new Depression." -Adam Drewnowski, the director of the Nutrition Sciences Program at the University of Washington in Seattle.
All of those foods are less processed which means they require more in-home cooking and consquently cause the eater to spend more time with his food.
So my suggestion is to seek ways to maximize the amount of time you spend with your food. As Wise Bread points out that could be in the consumpion but it should also be in the planning, ingredient sourcing, preparation, cooking, and clean-up.
One final point is that all this time need not happen everyday. I often spend 1-4 hours on a single day cooking or prepping all the food for the next 3-4 days.
How much time do you spend with your food?
