Foodist Page 14
My only exception to the supermarket rule is Whole Foods. Though it isn’t perfect, Whole Foods certainly makes an effort to get higher-quality produce, and I’ve sometimes seen food from the same local farmers I buy from at the farmers market. The downside of shopping at Whole Foods for produce is that it is more expensive, but for the increase in quality (and therefore the likelihood of your sticking to your healthstyle plan) I think the extra cost is worth it. Whole Foods also has fantastic seafood and meat departments and is very good about labeling where the animal products come from; the company seems to sincerely care about animal welfare and sustainability, which translates into higher-quality food. The good news is that outside of the produce and meat departments most Whole Foods products are competitively priced with other stores. There are some exceptions, but I’ve found I can get great deals on real, nutritious foods if I look for them. The bulk bins are particularly useful if price is a concern.
As a general rule the healthiest, least processed foods can be found along the perimeter of the grocery store. This is where you’ll find the vegetables and fruits, fish, meats, eggs, and other natural foods. There will be some impostors out there as well,* so don’t forget to check labels carefully. The main exceptions to the perimeter rule are dried goods, including grains, nuts, beans, and lentils; bottled and canned condiments, like olive oil, vinegar, jarred tomatoes, and anchovies; and many of the other pantry items mentioned above. You’ll have to go aisle spelunking to get those. I’m also a fan of frozen fruits and vegetables. Once you branch out from these sections, you’re treading on dangerous territory.
If for some reason you do find the need to browse some of the packaged food options (it happens), a few rules of thumb should help you separate the heirloom farro from the industrial chaff. Food manufacturers bank on your lazy elephant being on autopilot, and rightfully so. Front-of-package health claims are well known to increase food sales, so of course those big, brightly colored “Trans Fat Free!” proclamations are more about marketing than health. Foodists avoid this sales trap by ignoring every claim on the front packaging and turning immediately to the back or side of the package in search of the one thing that really matters when you’re buying packaged foods: the ingredients.
At least forty synonyms for sugar are commonly used in packaged foods, and if any of these appear in the first three to five ingredients listed on the back,* I’m probably not going to buy it. If you need a confirmation, you can glance over at the Nutrition Facts and check how much sugar is present in a serving. If it’s 10 grams or more, whatever you’re holding is probably not your best choice. If it has more than 15 grams of sugar, you can go ahead and call it dessert. For comparison, a Krispy Kreme glazed doughnut contains about 10 grams of sugar.
42 Code Words for Sugar
brown rice syrup
cane sugar
maltodextrin
corn-syrup solids
refiner’s syrup
evaporated cane juice
sucrose
glucose
evaporated cane juice crystals
caramel
dextrin
golden syrup
dried oat syrup
crystalline fructose
malt syrup
coconut palm sugar
beet sugar
fruit juice concentrate
maltose
treacle
agave nectar
molasses
inverted sugar
palm sugar
date sugar
gum syrup
carob syrup
high-fructose corn syrup
honey
brown sugar
pear juice concentrate
maple syrup
simple syrup
muscavado
corn syrup
dextrose
grape sugar
sweetened condensed milk
barley malt
corn sweetener
dehydrated cane juice
sorghum syrup
Be suspicious of any packaged food that has more than five ingredients. And if any of the ingredients contain numbers or acronyms or sound overly sciencey,* remember that they are probably there for the manufacturing process or to extend shelf life. These mysterious (but sadly ubiquitous) ingredients are hallmarks of foodlike products and are not present in real food.
I’m happy to report that there are some exceptions to these rules. I’ve seen a few progressive food companies that proudly put their ingredients on the front of the packaging (personally I think this should be an FDA requirement) and others that contain more than five extremely healthy ingredients. This is wonderful, and I hope more companies follow suit, as consumers start to demand it. That said, focusing on the ingredient list is always the best way to know whether a product is worthy of being called food.
THE ALTERNATIVE
I understand that no amount of begging and pleading from me will convince some of you to cook at home. Maybe you travel too often, work bizarre hours, or don’t have adequate kitchen facilities. Or maybe my arguments above just weren’t enough to get you to change your mind. If you’re willing to brave it, there are a few resources for you lost souls, but most of them will cost you extra in both time and money.
Arguably the safest bet for daily premade meals is at your local health-food store with a deli or prepared-food section. When in a pinch, I’ll often swing by Whole Foods and pick up a roast chicken or something from the salad bar. Personally, I think I make better-tasting food at home, but what I pick up is usually passable and finding something healthy and satisfying is relatively easy.
Though it may be difficult, a few healthy restaurants can also be a feasible option for those who aren’t able to cook for themselves. I’ll cover restaurant selection and ordering in chapter 12, but keep in mind that if restaurants are your default food stop, you’ll have to be exceptionally diligent in selecting meals and watching portions.
KEEPING PERSPECTIVE
It’s unfortunate that sourcing real food has become such a difficult task in industrial societies, and it’s important to understand that perfect eating won’t always be an option. Do your best to eat well, as often as you can, but don’t let yourself become a victim of circumstance. Remember that it’s better to eat vegetables, even if they aren’t local and organic, than to not eat vegetables at all. Everyone’s healthstyle will take a different path, so don’t be discouraged if it takes a few weeks before you can consistently integrate healthier foods into your diet. A healthstyle upgrade doesn’t happen overnight, and even seemingly small new healthy behaviors bring you a few steps closer to your goal.
SEVEN
ZEN AND THE ART OF MINDFUL EATING
“The problem with the future is that it keeps turning into the present.”
—CALVIN AND HOBBES
“There’s nothing like biting off more than you can chew, and then chewing anyway.”
—MARK BURNETT, PRODUCER OF SURVIVOR
Whenever people tell me they eat healthy but still can’t lose weight, I ask them if they have tried chewing. After an awkward silence I elaborate and ask if they’ve heard of mindful eating. At this point most people just continue to stare back at me blankly, wondering what on earth I’m talking about and whether there’s a chance I’ve traded in my lab coat for some New Age crystals and incense.
No, I’m not a hippie. Far from it, in fact. But I do think that just about everyone could benefit from adopting some principles from the Buddhist practice of mindfulness, particularly when it comes to eating habits. “Mindfulness” is just another word for “awareness,” and being aware of what and how you eat can have a tremendous impact on both the quantity and quality of the foods you choose. There is a wealth of scientific evidence that eating quickly, not chewing thoroughly, and not paying attention to what and how much you consume can result in substantial overeating. Even healthy foods can cause you to gain weight if you eat too fast or eat enough of them. Thoug
h sometimes this mindlessness can be used in your favor (as we discussed in chapter 3), more often than not mindless eating leaves you exposed to dozens, if not hundreds, of subtle cues that trigger you to eat more than you intend. Just as important, eating mindfully helps you appreciate and enjoy your food more, leaving you satisfied with less.
YOU ARE HOW YOU EAT
Have you ever put down your fork for a minute at a restaurant or social event and just watched people eat? It’s horrifying, particularly in this country, where we are notorious for gobbling our food. No sooner is a huge mouthful of food shoved into our face than we start poking around the plate for another giant bite, as if the fate of the world were dependent on finishing this meal as quickly as possible. If the fork happens to fill up before we’re done chewing, we hurry up and swallow to make room for the next one. An idle fork is the devil’s playground. I’ve seen grown men (you know who you are) put down three pieces of pizza in under five minutes. Even in my own home I’ve seen half chickens disappear before I can even smooth my napkin onto my lap. Sometimes I wonder why choking isn’t contending with heart disease as the leading cause of death in twenty-first-century America.
There has been plenty of speculation regarding why we eat so much more and so much faster than we used to. Some blame the distraction of television and electronic devices; others point their fingers at the deterioration of our hereditary food cultures. I’ve even heard people blame their siblings and parents for fostering dinner-table rivalries for the last scoop of mashed potatoes. Personally, I blame my own fast eating habits on what for a long time I considered my eating “efficiency.” I’m a busy person and have always prided myself on doing things quickly, effectively, and as goal-orientedly as possible. If I could multitask, better still. What I had to train myself to understand is that when it comes to eating, efficiency is not the highest virtue.
Quick eating almost always results in overeating. This is because your brain is not focused on the eating process, but on the goal of filling your stomach. Unfortunately, a full stomach does not automatically create satiety in the brain, which is the ultimate place fullness is perceived. The satisfaction you feel from finishing a meal is only sensed after the culmination of sensory cues and signals indicate that a meal is over. Some of these cues are internal, such as spending time chewing, tasting, and swallowing. Others are external, like seeing an empty plate or noticing a restless dining partner. Only after about twenty minutes will you actually be able to tell if your belly is full or not,* but if you’ve been stuffing your face the entire time, it is already too late.
How much you eat can easily trump the quality of your food, if you take in enough calories. You’ve probably heard of the movie Super Size Me, in which Morgan Spurlock eats every meal at McDonald’s for a month, says yes whenever the cashier offers to supersize his meal, and consequently gains a bunch of weight and develops a slew of nasty health problems. It’s an interesting flick, but a few years later James Painter, a professor at Eastern Illinois University, made a similar documentary called Portion Size Me, in which he demonstrates that the grossly unhealthy food wasn’t necessarily the problem in Spurlock’s experiment.
In Portion Size Me, Painter had two college students eat every meal at a fast-food restaurant for thirty days. The difference was that the students were only permitted to eat food portions that were appropriate for their body size (one was a small female, the other a larger male). During Portion Size Me the students both lost a small but noticeable amount of weight and saw improvements in cholesterol and other blood markers, despite all the refined carbs and trans fats they consumed during the course of the film. Eating better food certainly makes eating smaller portions easier* and can improve your health for other reasons, but never underestimate the value of simply eating less for controlling weight and, therefore, getting healthy.
Eating quickly is a particularly effective way to lose track of portions and accidentally overeat. Though the results from research have yielded mixed results,* most studies confirm a link between faster eating speeds and greater risk of obesity.1 Moreover, intervention trials that retrained overweight individuals to eat slower and more mindfully have been shown to help people lose weight and improve metabolic parameters.2 Whether it’s a plate of salmon and vegetables or a Reese’s peanut butter cup, there is definitely a wrong way to eat it.
MIND OVER FATTER
The good news is that mindless eating habits and fast eating can be overcome with practice. The bad news is that, like most bad habits, it is difficult to change your behavior without concerted effort. But if you’re committed to the practice, mindfulness does become easier and you’ll learn to enjoy your food more and naturally eat less.*
Mindfulness is difficult by its very nature. Sure, if you’re aware you’re shoveling food into your face, you can consciously slow down and focus on chewing. But since you’re likely eating quickly precisely because your mind is elsewhere, how can you be aware enough to stop yourself? If you are aware, aren’t you already acting more mindfully? It’s another one of those accursed catch-22s.
The key to developing mindful eating habits is to consciously set up triggers that remind you that you’re supposed to be paying more attention to your eating behavior. For example, starting to stab a bite of food with your fork is a defined action that occurs several times throughout your meal. For me, this action is now a trigger that forces me to ask myself if there’s already food in my mouth. If there is, I am reminded to set my fork down again and focus on chewing instead. It’s amazing how well this works. In this situation, the reward I receive for following through on the habit I’ve scripted (putting down my fork) is getting to appreciate and enjoy the bite of food already in my mouth. This is actually incredibly satisfying. It’s amazing how much of our meals we miss out on by greedily stabbing for our next bite of food when we already have food in our mouths that we’re completely ignoring. A secondary reward for following through with this habit is being conscious enough to know when I’ve had enough to eat and not getting overly stuffed and feeling uncomfortable after my meal.
There are dozens of little tricks you can develop by just spending some time thinking about the actions you go through during a meal. You can then use these to program self-checks on your behavior. For instance, setting the table can remind you to fill a glass of water and drink half of it before starting your meal. Smoothing your napkin on your lap is an opportunity to take a deep breath and reflect that you are about to eat and you should remember to eat mindfully and appreciate your food. If remembering to take a mindful pause is difficult for you, as it is for me, you can use technology to send yourself a helpful ping. When first developing my mindful habits, I set up a recurring event in the Reminders application on my iPhone with notifications reminding me to “chew twenty-five times” before lunch (12:00 p.m.) and dinner (6:00 p.m.). Counting your chews is one of the most effective ways to slow down and eat less, and simply requiring yourself to reach a certain number is an effective way many people have been able to control their weight. Try it. It works.
18 Tips to Eat More Slowly and Mindfully
1. Practice
Eating quickly is a habit that needs to be broken. Make a point to practice mindful eating by scheduling it into your day. Write it in your calendar, leave notes on your fridge, and send yourself reminders before meals until your new habits become automatic.
2. Chew twenty-five times
Chewing is probably the simplest and most effective way to develop the habit of eating mindfully. There used to be an entire dieting movement, led by the late Horace Fletcher, based on the idea that chewing more helped you eat less. Though Fletcher took this idea a little far (and was arguably a little crazy), there is reliable scientific data that extra chewing results in less overall food intake.
You might think that you chew your food, but there’s a good chance you are swallowing a lot of it whole. Take smaller bites and chew your food thoroughly. Notice the texture of what you are eat
ing and appreciate what it adds to your meal. This is something I need to remind myself of directly before I eat, so I keep this on my to-do list. Once the habit develops, you will feel uncomfortable swallowing large, unchewed hunks of food.* I recommend twenty-five chews per bite, but likely anything over twenty chews will provide a benefit. The most important part is that you choose a number and count your chews until you reach it. The number itself is less consequential.
3. Put down your fork
The classic recommendation to put down your fork (or sandwich) between bites has stuck around for one simple reason: it works. When we are not eating mindfully, our hands go into shoveling mode; our fork is primed with another bite almost instantly after popping the last one in our mouth. Putting your fork down forces you to relax a bit and focus on chewing what you already have.
4. Drink
Another way you can force yourself to slow down is to consciously sip your drink throughout your meal. This requires you to put your fork down, chew, and swallow before eating more. It also adds liquid to your stomach and can help you feel more full. Water is a perfect choice, but even sipping wine can slow down your meal (though it may decrease your inhibition when the dessert menu gets passed around).
5. Feed yourself with your nondominant hand
Making things more difficult is a great way to force yourself to pay attention to what you’re doing. One simple way to do this is to force yourself to eat with your nondominant hand, which for 90 percent of us is our left hand. It might be too much to do this for every meal, but trying it for breakfast and snacks is a good place to start. Be careful, though; if you get too good at it, you can slip back into your mindless habits.