For some of us, food is warmth and love. We associate it with home and childhood: tantalizing smells that greeted us after school on a chilly December afternoon. The kitchen served as the center of the house under the kind direction of the Captain in the apron. If we were good, we could afford to stir the pot. If we were very good, we had to clean the mixing bowl.
As we grew older, we found wonders elsewhere – the coffee shops and dining rooms where teens hung out and food was just a platform for the real business of talking, socializing, and flirting. We drank cola and root beer and discovered ice cream, pizza, and chips. But real food was what we ate at home.
Later, we moved on to the pale imitation of food represented by university cafeterias and underground cafes that were loaded with music and political rebellion and light on the menu. We returned home for the holidays and again ate real food, as good as we remember it. Some of us switched to C’s non-food rations and swore we’d never enjoy eating again.
We moved to the world of work: automatons and charcuterie or steak lunches and martinis on account of expenses, where even the most exquisite food took a back seat in the table discussions. We got married, moved to new homes, rediscovered the warmth and intimacy of a family kitchen, and embraced the delights of gourmet cuisine, homemade bread, and new cuisine.
At the same time, just below our level of consciousness, the fast food industry began to flourish into the billion dollar gorilla that it is today.
At first, it was little burgers and hot dogs with fries and a drink. At first, it was an occasional visit to “get Mom out of the kitchen.” At first, it was a quick thing that avoided interruptions in our race to the top.
Menus have been expanded to encourage more frequent visits. Drive-Thrus, which remained closed and empty until noon, suddenly figured out how to make breakfast items that could be eaten behind the wheel. Chicken, fish, and ribs were added, soon followed by Mexican specialties, baked potatoes, fried vegetables, and sandwiches. The burgers got bigger and so did we.
Somewhere, a bright lightbulb exploded in a publicist’s brain and “Super-Size” was born. If a burger was good, why not make it bigger for a little more money? If French fries are the highlight of American teenagers, why not enlarge the portions? Why not make the best purchase value in a complete meal, combining everything the customer wants (and maybe something they don’t want)? Why not enlarge all the food and really make money?
Rather than an occasional change of pace, the Drive-Thru gradually assumed a predominant place in our diets. The astute marketers targeted their sales pitch to the most receptive and easy-to-manipulate niche of the population: children. Tired parents with little time gave in to tearful pleas to visit Ronald or Jack. And our children got fat.
Adolescents, with their deep-seated psychological preference for living in their cars, lived on a diet made up almost exclusively of fast food, scoffing at the idea of a comfort food. Active and full of energy, they ignored the almost imperceptible swelling that triggered their intake.
What did he have to worry about? The Drive-Thrus were a godsend: tasty food, quick access, car-proof containers, cheap satiety.
Then we woke up. We looked at a world in which even the average individual was clearly overweight and more than a third of us were obese, including our children. In a culture obsessed with the appearance of being thin, we were permanently and undeniably fattened.
The few previous critical voices rose to a low roar. Yesterday’s tasty creations became the now-maligned culprits of our condition. To keep the money-making machine viable, fast-food moguls adapted to the cries for change: the oil used for frying was advertised as unsaturated, salads appeared on menus, substitute toppings for French fries were available, and ” Super-Size? ” It was no longer the standard order taker refrain.
The industry breathed a sigh of relief to see that some changes made everything turn out well and the world could return to its infatuation with the Drive-Thru. We glow with a sense of satisfaction that we have propelled the market in a healthier direction. Then we noticed that we were still fat.
Where did we go wrong? Well, the “small” burgers were still big: two or three times the size of their relative from forty years ago. Salads were healthy until soaked with several hundred calories of creamy dressing. To keep the flavor we had fallen in love with, toppings were added – more types of cheese, butter, toppings, and dipping sauces. And everything was still mostly fried: breakfast, hamburgers, chicken, potatoes. Even high-quality frying oil, which is changed frequently, is loaded with calories that sink to the waist, hips, and internal organs.
Fast food has taken us out of the kitchen into a world where the demand for productivity forces us to work more and more and robs us of any notion of free time. We run to keep pace with a fast-spinning society, and we eat on the run because to pause is to fail. There is no escape? We are in the 21st century: it is unlikely to return to the diets of fifty or a hundred years ago. Old fashioned “made from scratch” meals take too much time and effort, except for special occasions, in our fast-paced lives of two working parents, long work hours, and everyday travel.
What we can do, if we seek to separate ourselves from the huge pack of heavyweights, is to remember that the path to health, leanness, delayed aging, and increased longevity has been repeatedly demonstrated by our little friend, the lab rat. .
The secret is consistent, long, cheat-proof, eat little. Once that core concept has been embraced, and fully internalized, the path to a new lean you becomes clear: eat whatever you want, but LOT LESS. We are not looking at the old adage of “eat moderately and move a lot” because we know from experience that it doesn’t work. When I say “much less” I mean it. You may eat three times a day, in addition to snacks. Cutting out a snack here or dessert there can eventually help you lose weight, if you have twenty years to invest in trying.
No “cuts”. Cut, cut, pulverize your portions. If you eat three meals a day, switch to eating just one. If you like to graze on six mini-meals or snacks, cut into two. Reducing your total intake by two-thirds should bring you into the zone of your actual daily needs. Yes, it would be nice if you opted to make those reduced calories very nutritious, but we all know that you are going to eat what you are going to eat, no matter how much the health gurus bug you. So go ahead, eat whatever you want, just a third of your usual servings.
To keep your energy in balance, you can distribute your only meal throughout the day. If your regular lunch is a cheeseburger, fries, and a smoothie, break it up: a smoothie for breakfast, a burger for lunch, a dinner of fries, and a slice of cheese. So are you on a diet? Are you spending your valuable time on specialty shopping and food preparation? Do you have to think about which menu items fit into your prescribed weight plan? No, none of these apply. You are simply eating the way you always have, except that one day of your old meal plan now lasts for three days. If you’re worried about your health, take a multivitamin (funny, you weren’t worried about your health at the same rate in the past, were you?) And persistently) passed out, take a canned nutritional booster like Guarantee.
It is almost too simple and too easy IF you have really internalized the concept of eating little and have adopted an attitude of “I can, I will”, the key to everything.
PS You will also save a lot of money!