I Think, Therefore I
Don’t Eat
The 17th
century French philosopher Rene Descartes concluded that his existence was
irrefutable based on the presence of his own thoughts. Simply put, if I am
thinking, then I exist. This led to his infamous formulation: “I think
therefore I am.”
But thoughts determine
more than our existence. They shape our everyday feelings and behaviors.
In essence, what we think about something influences how we feel
about it. It doesn’t matter whether our thinking is right or wrong. What
matters is what we believe.
Individuals’ receptivity
to any food is highly dependent on their beliefs about it. If one concludes
that a particular food is disgusting, unhealthy, immoral, or weird, it will
be avoided. Examples abound. The 16th century Europeans shunned
tomatoes and potatoes, believing them to be poisonous. The Reverend
Sylvester Graham, creator of Graham crackers, believed that consuming
ketchup and mustard led to insanity. He also believed that eating meat led
to sinful sexual excess. Not surprisingly, he didn’t eat meat.
Even modern man is not
immune to bizarre beliefs about food. I know a homo-phobic individual who
believes that sushi is a sissy food and indicative of homosexuality.
Naturally, he has never tried sushi, nor is he inclined to. And I guarantee
you, no matter how compatible the biochemistry of his palate is with sushi,
if he did try it, his thinking would prevent him from liking it.
Granted, these are
examples of extreme ignorance or lunacy. While the average person’s
irrational beliefs about food do not reach psychotic proportions, milder but
nevertheless askew perspectives still run rampant in the general
population. They too are fueled by limited food knowledge and personality
variables that render the person suggestible to such concepts.
A compelling example is
the series of fad diets that have swept the nation over the past decades.
The three main nutrients in all foods are carbohydrates, proteins and fats.
Our society has run the gamut with diets that have vilified or revered each
element with recommendations for curtailing or increasing its consumption.
Thus, there are low-carb, low-protein, low-fat, high-carb, high-protein and
yes, believe it or not, high-fat diets out there. I find it a glorious
tribute to the diversity of human irrationality, that each food constituent
has advocates and enemies. Yet all three are required for normal bodily
functioning. We need a balanced diet as much as we need to be mentally
balanced.
People also tend to draw
erroneous conclusions about foods that are foreign to them. Strange foods
are often assumed to be inferior or distasteful. One day my parents were
coming over for dinner. I wanted to make Caesar salad and asked my dad if
he liked romaine lettuce. He firmly asserted that he “only likes iceberg
lettuce.” Nevertheless I made a traditional Caesar salad with romaine and
served it to him, (he doesn’t know which lettuce is which). He wolfed down
his entire bowl of salad with obvious delight and then proceeded to commend
me for it.
The reality of the
situation, (the actual lettuce), had nothing to do with his initial
resistance. His “concept” of romaine lettuce is what got in the way. By
bypassing his thinking, I was able to determine whether he had a genuine
distaste for romaine, which obviously he didn’t.
Some folks are paranoid
about contaminants in their food, i.e., bacteria, antibiotics, insecticides,
etc. Let me say right off the bat that these are real concerns. However,
I’m referring to the people whose thinking grossly exaggerates the danger or
has no basis at all.
Let’s take egg phobia,
specifically the thinking that eggs not fully cooked, (such as eggs over
easy), are dangerous because of salmonella. According to the US Department
of Agriculture, one in 20,000 eggs is contaminated with salmonella. If
you’re an average American and consume 180 eggs per year, it will take you
111 years to encounter a contaminated egg. But not all the eggs we eat are
raw or partially cooked. We consume many fully cooked eggs such as omelets,
hard-boiled, in quiche, in baked goods, etc. Assuming that even half the
eggs you eat each year are over easy, it will take 222 years to actually
consume one contaminated egg whose bacteria was not destroyed from cooking.
And even then, depending on the amount of salmonella in the egg, you may not
even get sick. Your immune system will fend off small amounts. If your
immune system is compromised by age, (the elderly and young children),
pregnancy, certain medications, or medical illness, then all bets are off.
But if not, when you start crunching the numbers, the issue begins to become
absurd.
Some fearful thinking is
completely groundless. I know a chiropractor who deprives his children of
milk because of his fears that antibiotics given to cows will wind up in the
milk. Yet it is against the law in the US to sell milk containing
antibiotics. Milk is tested for antibiotics and if found, cannot be sold to
the public. When dairy cows are given antibiotics for infections, their
milk is discarded until the medication has passed through their system.
At the very least,
aberrant conceptions about food only serve to limit our pleasures. They
restrict us from embracing life by decreasing our options and our freedom.
Or they impose unnecessary guilt or self-disparagement if we partake in a
mentally “forbidden” delight. At their worse, they can cause us to harm
others. A recent news story reported how some babies of ultra-vegetarian
mothers were developing neurological disorders from the lack of certain
nutrients in the mother’s diet, and hence her milk.
America has become far
too neurotic about food. Numerous other cultures embrace food without
reservations, and joyously make it a pleasurable part of daily life. Many
Europeans eat whatever they want with far less hang-ups, and still live
longer than us. Of the many explanations for this, one is the difference in
how we mentally approach food. They celebrate food. We draw all sorts of
kooky conclusions about it and then become leery of it.
The Inuit are the native
people of Greenland and the Artic. In an interview with the Canadian
periodical “Health Canada” one of their individuals stated: “For us to be
fully healthy, we must have our foods, recognizing the benefits that they
bring. Contaminants do not affect our souls. Avoiding our food from fear
does.”
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