We all just love to eat, don't we? It's one of the best joys of life, indulging our senses, feeding our spirits, nourishing our souls and comforting our inner selves!
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| Sausage Casserole |
And we mostly eat too much, too often and far too willingly. We eat food because we are hungry. Hungry for all kinds of things and not always for the hungry condition of our body's present needs.
We eat to make us feel good. We are mouth hungry, wanting a tasty morsel to make us feel warm, cosy, comfortable and happy.
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| Almond Cake |
We eat to fill an aching void, an often misunderstood emotion, for mostly it's not an aching void. It's an imagined "thing" and we confuse one for the other and eat to restore our sense of happiness, which is the thing we believe food will supply; for isn't it a happy feeling to be stuffing your mouth with some delicious, stolen, morsel of food from the 'fridge or a jar in the cupboard, pushed to the back of the shelf, so that you don't see it too often, thus avoiding the temptation to consume whatever resides within its clear glass perspective.
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| Beef Curry and Couscous |
I remember an occasion, years ago, stealing raisins from a jar on the top shelf of a tall kitchen cupboard in my parent's kitchen. My mother caught me in the very act, dipping my sticky fingers into the jar, grabbing a few more raisins, dropping them in my guilty-haste and hearing my mother's voice in the doorway! She looked at me and dryly said "just make sure you clear up, when you've finished!" then vanished away from the scene.
For years now, I've sneaked food from my kitchen, eaten it greedily with a relish, leaving me with intense feelings of remorse, guilt and anxiety. Promising never to do the same again, until the next time, when I do all over again, instantly regretting it.
Of course, sometimes you do have intense hunger pangs, culminating in a total longing for food, which can only be appeased by a slice of hot buttered toast and a mug of hot tea!
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| My Gluten-free Bread |
Mostly, however, our hunger is imagined and we can easily satisfy a longing for a "nibble" with a large glass of fresh cold water. It's only mouth-hunger, we can hang-on 'til supper time and enjoy the ensuing meal even more for our resistance.
So hunger apart, I do think we do eat too much food, too often and without thought. Now the Powers-that-Be are telling us we are wasting food, throwing too much away because we buy too much food in the first place, that so many of us are obese or overweight, that our children are in danger of future health problems due to present over-eating and weight issues.
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| Polenta Chicken & Bacon |
So we all eat too much, one way or another and then, to makes matters worse, some of us do not take enough exercise, are too indolent or indifferent to the needs of our bodies. We exercise and play games and sport at school and after that, it is down to the individual. Some of us respond well to that challenge while others do not. It seems to me exercise should be the last thing to go when, often, it's the first thing!!!
Eating too much can be a lesson learnt, a routine and then a hard-to-shift or stop habit. Often, if you consume to much of any one food, all at once, you simply don't get the taste at all, it's just a food blur. The occasional feast or binge is OK as a treat but not as a repeatable right.
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| Baked Beans on Gluten-free toast |
OK food is glorious, our sustenance, support and comforter and we must all, daily face up to the challenge of monitoring our food intake, usage and provisioning of our homes. A brilliant worthy challenge for all of us to take on board and achieve, don't you think, when there are peoples elsewhere who never have enough food to eat.
Daisy
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