Eating Your Veggies

I’ve recently seen commercials for V-8, touting its serving of vegetables and fruits in drink form. What I find interesting about them is that they typically show men being the ones who are less inclined to actually eat the vegetables. And it makes me wonder. Are men genetically less inclined to have a taste for vegetables? Is it societal? Do women take the time to eat vegetables more often, or is that a stereotype?

What I also can’t help wondering is if the real problem is not gender, but in how the food is prepared. A good example is that a few years ago I was convinced that I didn’t like eggplant. It has kind of strange, mealy texture, and it’s not my favorite flavor – or at least, I’d never had it prepared in a way that I liked. But I decided to give it another try last summer when eggplant started popping up everywhere at the Farmer’s Market, in part of an attempt to eat foods when they’re in season.

I started experimenting. I found a Szechuan Tofu and Eggplant recipe that sounded interesting, and with a little trepidation I tried it – and I loved it! Encouraged, I made the Moosewood Cookbook version of ratatouille, heavily featuring eggplant. I loved that as well.

Admittedly, I might be more inclined to like vegetables than some people, but I really do think it’s largely about how the food is made. Many New Englanders (or at least Mainers), for instance, have a tendency to overcook food until it’s all a bit mushy, and not to flavor things strongly. Well, if that’s the case, I have to agree that I don’t like it. I don’t want to eat broccoli, for instance, if it has no crunch to it, if it’s a drab grayish green instead of a bright vibrant color.

I would therefore encourage anyone who thinks they don’t like vegetables to consider how they’ve tried eating them, and perhaps to give them another chance. If you still don’t like them, at least you can say that you gave it a good effort, and if necessary return to your V-8. But me, I prefer the satisfaction of eating my calories. And so my next attempt is to see if I can find a preparation of fiddleheads that I like. Wish me luck!

Déjà Vu

When I was going through some old journal entries the other day, I came across the following, and it really struck me how rarely I think about my younger self these days, but that at least when I do, it's with more sympathy than I had for myself at the time.

February 25, 2007 – at a conference in Boston

On Friday, I was having extremely strong déjà vu, memory flashbacks of being a student, going from South Station to the Red Line during rush hour with luggage, and especially climbing the stairs. It wasn’t even just a mental memory but a physical one, my body flashing back to the way it had been, to the sheer almost-impossibility of getting up the stairs with my luggage. I got a little short of breath even now, 100 pounds lighter and with less stuff, and what was interesting was suddenly discovering a new respect for my younger self. At the time, I only hated it, hated my body and myself for being that way, but now I look back and realize what an effort it was for me, how strong I actually was to be able to do it at all. I don’t think I could do it now - strap on an extra 100 pounds and surmount those stairs - and that’s a strange, sobering thought. It made me want to comfort that younger me, but it was also oddly healing, something I hadn’t expected, an unlooked-for gift.

Numbers Game

I’m a numbers person. I always have been, even in the times when I had my struggle with fractions and thought I hated math. One example is one time in late high school when I was packing up Oreo cookies for a camping trip, and dividing them between various bags. To make sure they were exactly even, I counted them out neatly by 2’s, and my dad commented, “It’s good you’re going into computer science.”

It’s primarily that I like things that are neat and organized, and numbers mostly are (leaving aside things like irrational or imaginary numbers for the moment). And so it’s not surprising that when losing weight, numbers became even more prominent, particularly since it’s something that society advocates as well. For instance, some snacks are now packaged in 100 calorie servings, the nutritional breakdown of foods is displayed on the packaging, all broken into neat little numbers. Weight Watchers uses a points system, and South Beach and Atkins diets are specific about how many grams of carbohydrates you can have.

For me, the numbers game starts first thing in the morning when I step on the scale. I know, I know, most weight loss programs don’t advocate weighing yourself every day, but it’s oddly addictive. In the early days, I wanted that daily confirmation about my weight, and in fact sometimes weighed myself two or three times throughout the day. Not anymore, thankfully – now it’s just the morning weigh-in, and that’s mostly to confirm how I think I’ve done.

Then there’s the numbers of calories, a running total that I often keep in my head. I know it’s obsessive and not really healthy, but I can’t seem to help it. Since I know that I can only eat so many calories per day, I keep this in mind whenever I eat – it’s also part of the reason that I plan my menu well in advance, so that I know roughly how much I’m expecting in a given day. The numbers of grams of protein, carbohydrate, and fat are also running tallies.

The problem with all this, apart from the obsessive factor, is that it reduces food to numbers, when it’s so much more than that. It can make it difficult to enjoy, and to some extent takes away my sense of responsibility about what I’m eating. If I know how many calories are in it, and how those are broken out, I don’t pay as much attention to how I actually feel after eating, if I’m still hungry, or if I’m not hungry even if I haven’t eaten as many calories as I think I should be able to.

What’s interesting is that when I’m taken outside of my normal routines and schedule, without access to my scale or nutrition information, I find that I do pay more attention to what my body is actually telling me. I still have a pretty good sense of how many calories I’m consuming, just based on experience, but I’m more focused on if I feel hungry or not. And more often than not these days, I discover that when I get home and jump back on the scale – I haven’t gained any weight.

So I’m thinking of experimenting on taking a vacation from the scale, and give the numbers a rest for a little while. It might be nice to have fewer things running around in my head, and take more ownership of what I’m doing, and be fully focused on my body. Wish me luck.