A week or so ago I got rid of my final cooked food addiction… or so I thought.
I'd been reading a really interesting thread on Give It To Me Raw about being addicted to cooked food. At the time I was eating all raw.. except for going out for hot chips, ohhh, 2 or 3 times a week.
*scratches head* What the hell was up with that?
Well, it turns out that potatoes (and wheat) have a similar effect on the brain to mild opiates — ie, they cause a slight distancing from your current concerns. At the time I had been feeling some heavy emotions coming up, and had been fearful of dealing with them (no, I hadn't thought about just tapping out the fear *slaps forehead*), so of course I was instinctively gravitating to potatoes in order to quell those emotions & keep myself 'safe'.
Keeping me safe, & making me feel good being the primary aim of all these sorts of automatic behaviours — it's just the "little us" inside, our minds, trying to protect us. The irony, of course, is that typically the behaviours actually worsen the situation, they just feel like they help.
So, once I tapped out using chips to numb myself, voila! Last cooked food addiction! I am now perfect & worthy of adoration, green smoothies all round!! (for the humour deprived, I'm joking.. oh, except for the smoothies, they rock, please, have one, you'll feel much better).
Ok, where was I? Oh yes, hot chips.
So, that was well and good. Back on the wagon I go, and sure enough, start feeling awesome again, bouncing around the room Russian cossack dancing to Billy Holiday and so on, as I am wont to do.
If there's one thing I've learned on this food journey, starting way back with that insane juice feast, it's that a lot (all?) of the time we crave or feel drawn to a specific food — and particularly those we've had a lot of in the past — it's not the food we're drawn to. It's the emotional feeling we attach to that food. Occasionally there are biochemical drivers, of course, but emotional attachment is definitely the major one.
Since the great hot chip realisation of 2008, I've had the chance to see this in detail with three more separate foods (the alert readers among you will already have a good idea what they are).
Bacon 
pic by Bobby Stokes (note the opiate bread+hashbrowns too, always a bonus)
After a recent mild financial setback, I had a definite desire to go out for a cooked breakfast. Ok, no big deal, being raw (for me, at least) is about eating whatever-the-hell-you-want, but being conscious about why. That's what's important, not necessarily what I shove in my gob.
After a bit of thought, I realised — it wasn't the rest of the breakfast that mattered, it was really all about the bacon. Why? Well when I was growing up, we didn't have bacon very often — with 8 kids, that's a LOT of bacon, and it's pretty expensive stuff. So, at some level I associated bacon with wealth — it was my 'wealthy food', as it were. I'd eat it, and feel wealthy.
Like so many things, in hindsight, this is both amusing & kinda ridiculous.
Of course, breaking this connection was as simple as tapping it out (2mins, done). Now I'm still free to enjoy bacon, if I choose, but it won't be because of some illusory feeling I ascribe to the mythical powers of the fried pig!
Noodles
pic by サンドラ (These are the fancy ones, we only dreamt of these)
I've always enjoyed noodles, and even discovered a great little place here in Melbourne that makes their own noodles on the premises. It's super cool — you can actually watch the chef in the window swinging them around. I just love that kind of thing. Oh, plus it's super cheap — always an unexpected bonus with great food. Ironically I discovered this place only after I decided to seriously up my raw food intake. Hehe ewps.
Of course, I do realise that noodles are in the flour+water=glue-in-my-belly food group — not particularly easy to digest & will tend to make me sleepy as my body fights to digest it.
What's taken me much longer to realise is the emotional association I had with noodles. I didn't twig to this until I was in the supermarket downstairs watching a guy building a gargantuan stack of 25c packets of instant noodles.
This took me back in a flash to a time over a decade ago, living with my little brother Rob in a dilapidated place in the centre of a town described by the CEO of Glaxo Wellcome as "the arse end of the universe" (Glaxo was founded there). We were basically living off the cheapest of the cheap of the horrid little packets of two minute noodles at the time. We used to wait until there was a sale, then go and fill up an entire shopping trolley of the things at discounted prices.
Ahh, good times.
*cough*
Anyway, got rid of THAT connection. Still love my brother, can live without the deep fried flour+god knows what else.
Bagels
pic by sionfullana (no, my sister is not Asian, but I do like the size of that bagel)
Bagels were more interesting. I never ate them until my sister Ruth went to the Atlanta Olympics in 1996. She came back and raved to me about how good they were — even just eaten plain.
So of course there was the association. Hanging out with her, having bagels together. Definitely a positive connection there.
There was a little more to it though. When I was working in London, at a particularly productive time in my life, I used to have bagels for breakfast every morning — with an orange juice (see? health conscious!). So as well as the association with her, I'd also connected them with being productive. Since I love being productive, if I wanted to feel that way, I would have a bagel.
This sounds like lunacy, and in a way it is, but this is the way our minds work.
The result
So what does breaking these connections achieve? Well, several things:
- Eating those foods won't pump my brain with endorphins or whatever-other-chemicals are created by the emotional connection I've made
- I don't feel compelled to eat those foods when what I actually want is the emotional feeling
- I'm still completely free to eat them, if I want, and enjoy them for what they are as foods — unclouded by anything else I've attached to them.
Stopping to look at it — what's more healthy? Missing my sister, and eating a bagel to remind me of good times hanging out together, or missing my sister & picking up the phone to tell her I love her?
If I really must, I can always eat a bagel while I call her — it won't be the first time she's heard me talking with my mouth full. That way she gets the love AND an earful of bagel — the perfect solution!
Okay, that was an eye opener ! I never realised the connections we make between food and moments, persons, emotions… Thanks a lot !
Not half as eye opening as it's been for me, I can assure you..
but you're very welcome :)
Today I wanna tap on my addiction to chocolate… it feels like standing on the edge of a precepice, lol !
i can totally relate to this post…i work right by the W hotel in San Diego and have been obsessed with their truffled french fries. i am one of those unsophisticated rubes who thinks everything tastes better with truffle oil. that potatoes are a mild opiate is not surprising to me at all. my solution was to purchase some truffle salt and paste and find ways to incorporate them into raw recipes, thereby gaining the benefit of yummy mushroom taste without deep fried glue clogging my intestines.
bacon was never my thing…being asian, nothing's sacred and my parents certainly brought the stuff home. i ate it as a child but i never liked the smell of it frying up in the microwave. no attachment there.
bagels…ahhh.…i can relate. the BEST bagels imho are in nyc. btw, si, i was also at the atlanta olympics! i was a volunteer with my dad and my aunt for table tennis. SO much fun! i used to eat a cheddar jalapeño bagel or two every morning with coffee when i worked in ny (i was a smoker at the time and believe the nicotine certainly contributed to my calorie-burning propensity). sometimes i'd toast the bagel and put butter and more cheese on it(!) so yes…i understand what you mean re productivity and bagels…although i suspect the caffeine also helped. :)
p.s. the best ramen is shin ramyun, comes in a red package with a big bold black character (chinese?) on it…i'd cook the noodles and drain all the water before adding the spice so it was super-hot and salty…sometimes i'd add an egg. that was some serious comfort/college food. :)
>"the arse end of the universe"
Apparently living close to Dr Who's Tardis as I do, this phrase was instantly translated into "Palmerston North" for me. Anyone else had that happen to them?
Nostalgic moment : I was going through some old boxes of stuff I'm in the process of throwing out, and came across a diary entry that simply said "Si, 21st, Palmie". Great party. I'm glad you've stopped dancing naked though. And I'm hoping you no longer decorate your rooms in total black?
Love ya, man… :)
Back on topic though — it doesn't surprise me too much that food has emotional attachments — I mean, we do it with smells, and music, and anything else as well, probably (textures maybe? colours?). The negative aspect of food is that the wrong food may be mentally positive for us but physically bad. Music tends not to do that. If I listen to The Muttonbirds' Envy Of Angels CD, I'm instantly back living in your garage again (1998?), pretty vividly. Great times, great CD.
I found a funnier connection last week — was in a coffee bar the other day (poisoning myself with much glee and joy, I might add), and a blast from the past hit the shop's speakers — The Holiday Makers' Sweet Lovers. I hate the song with a passion because my first girlfriend deemed it "our song" (as in, "oh, they're playing our song, lets dance to it!"). I hated it then, I hate it now, but I could never muster up the courage to tell her.
The association is positive though, since it always makes me smile about how young I was. Awful song, bad memory, yet a positive connection!
chocolate's an interesting one. I may have that myself :)
So, thinking about it, here's what I'd do (& will. soon. I promise *grin*):
* think of positive memories around chocolate — good times you've had it — positive associations. Tap on those "even though chocolate reminds me of X.." etc
* think of benefits from eating chocolate — eg, "even though chocolate cheers me up..", "even though chocolate tastes really yummy.."
* after you've hit all the positive things you can think of, try just hitting it straight out "even though I'm addicted to chocolate.."
also useful might be to try open-ended tapping. tap "even though I'm addicted to chocolate because.. [then keep tapping, but wait a coupla secs, as if your brain is saying something to fill in the gap] I deeply & completely love & accept myself" then on each point "I'm addicted to chocolate because [keep tapping for a coupla secs]" — sometimes your brain will fill in the gap with words, in which case say them out loud. sometimes it won't — in which case that's ok, just keep tapping.
in terms of specific cravings, I've actually found just 'releasing' the craving to work better than tapping.
I reckon that'd be a pretty good start.. let me know how you get on! (& I'll do likewise)
oh I still dance naked — just not in public so much.. that was pretty much a oncer :)
I agree music is a LOT safer in terms of emotional connections. I suspect there's still a strong effect there (after all, sounds & music are used heavily in various forms of therapy), but at least you're not dealing with the heavy/toxic/etc biochemical effects of positive-association-yet-negative foods.
.. and isn't it odd how rare it is to have a positive emotional association to, I dunno, broccoli? *grin* maybe that's just because of the commonality of eating crappy food when we're younger.
Got any associations to mcdonald? *wink*
What is it about college & ramen eh? I was the same (although less sophisticated. Never thought of eggs).
Oddly, the best bagels in Melbourne are in a place right under my building.. but since going very-much-mostly raw, they're just tasting more and more bland & stodgy. My imagination? :)
Nifty trick re truffle oil btw. I've gotta say, I've enjoyed a truffle pizza on occasion. Boy howdy that's tasty.
the egg made the broth super rich and yummy…made the ramen a little more substantial than just plain ol' simple carbs. broke + college = cheap sustenance a.k.a. ramen!
then again, i was also working in a bar in nyc while i was in school. friday night, saturday double, sunday brunch. i'd take my hard-earned $ and go bonkers at gourmet garage and lifethyme (a health food store)…toting bags and bags of groceries home on the train like a modern-day cavewoman drags a gazelle for hubby (i.e. my crazy artist bf who rarely left the studio to shower, much less eat).
first of all.. EWW! bad hygiene = bad taste = eck, no thanks.
That aside — I meant to mention, bagels + coffee.. they're such a great combo. It's a weird thing — it's like, by themselves they're ok (but not great) but together they're awesome. Two bad foods make one good one? You almost need one to compensate the other.
pps. super glad I've never worked in hospo. Crazy, but boy, great way to develop alcoholism :)
Macdonalds? No idea — last time I was there was (literally) the morning before I watched "super size me". Must have been what, 2004?
I suspect the association would be reasonably positive, although I did nurse a lot of hangovers there, I guess… :)
It could be worse — at least I never worked there… *wink*
— Jack
hmm…well i kind of had a thing for his natural funk, lol. i wouldn't have been with him otherwise. but i also like the smell of oil paint and turpentine. :D
some things are magic combos — bagels and coffee, coffee and cigarettes (i quit), cigarettes and a glass of laphroaig (don't drink hard alcohol anymore)…
last night i had single glass of organic wine and it didn't taste so good…i think i am slowly losing my penchant for that too.