Food, glorious food!

The most unintentionally hilarious thing my daughter ever said to me, when she was pestering me for more food, was:

“Please, I want something else to eat. I’m still hungry - YOU’RE NEVER HUNGRY!”

To me, the phrase ‘you’re never hungry!’ exemplifies how children view their parents - as these big, spongy providers, with no needs or requirements of their own. But it was particularly funny that my daughter should say this to me because, I think it is safe to say, I am ALWAYS HUNGRY!

I am obsessed with food. I think about food as much as men are purported to think about sex - every six seconds, is it? (And the rest of the time I’m just thinking about sex)

There are two clear, opposing perceptions of people who ‘enjoy their food’: one is the image of sexy, voluptuous Nigella Lawson (before she lost the weight), sneaking down to her fridge (in her fake, BBC studio, home), dipping her manicured finger into a chocolate mousse and sucking her digit with a lascivious wink to the camera.

Sexy Nigella is curvy and creamy-skinned and her hair is wonderfully glossy; possibly as a result of all the butter and olive oil she consumes. Nigella is Betty Boop to Gillian McKeith's Olive Oyl. Nigella is bursting with joie de vivre, she reminds you of the good things in life; of the things necessary to your survival, she is the female version of the Ghost of Christmas present, surrounded by beautiful food and clad in AstroTurf (I think that may just my enduring image of the ghost of Christmas Present). McKeith is like a dried prune, telling you to bin any food which has any flavour [And she made a holy show of herself in I’m a Celebrity…]

The counterfoil to sexy Nigella; the negative perception of free-form eating, is the exemplar of gluttony in the awful film, Se7en. The super morbidly obese, murder victim with his rippling acres of marbled, grey flesh has clearly taken it all too far; there’s nothing remotely sexy about his bloated corpulence.

[Imagine the casting  call - we want you to play a super-morbidly obese corpse, who has been murdered for being fat. You will be robbed of your humanity, an object of repugnance, and you won’t have any lines...Sound good?]

So, I guess the trick is to try and tread the fine line between gorgeous, plumptuous Nigella and hideously corpulent 'Gluttony' man...

A couple of years ago, I went to the doctor with a hormone related problem. I’d had some tests and they couldn’t find a reason for this problem so I asked my doctor if she thought that acupuncture might help. She told me that, although I was welcome to try it, she didn’t believe in it and saw it as a waste of (my) money.

“Of course, it might help if you managed your weight.” She told me. [This was the pre-Fitbit days]

‘Manage your weight’ - doctor-speak for ‘get rid of some that lard!’

I was duly abashed. Like all the female doctors I’ve ever come across, this one was wisp-thin, probably subsisting on a diet of black coffee and the vapour from the anti-bacterial hand gel. In comparison to this slender sapling, I felt gargantuan.

“I am trying (to lose weight).” I said in a feeble, apologetic voice.

I felt like Anne in Anne of Green Gables, when Marilla admonishes her for talking so much and Anne replies; ‘Oh Marilla; if only you knew how much I want to say and don’t!’

I wanted to tell the doctor - ‘If only you knew how much I wanted to eat and don’t!’ Really, I could be much fatter than this, (I wanted to say). If eating were an Olympic sport, I’d be a champion.

But back to the fun stuff - food. I don’t understand people who just ‘eat to live’ or who aren’t interested in food. What is wrong with them? I do envy them a little, I have to say; those ghostly, luminescent aliens, floating around on their spindly limbs, but I pity them too because (I feel) that they are essentially missing out.

I love looking at cookery books. I don’t object at all to people who post endless pictures of their meals on social media - I love it! I want to see what people are eating (and how much) I want to see which restaurant serves the best looking desserts, I like those (probably passe but maybe coming round the block again) pretentious towers of culinary and engineering mastery, on white plates.

When you ‘diet’ you come to fear food;  like Edward Cullen in Twilight (when he first meets Bella and is intoxicated by her scent), you fear that a tiny taste of food will let loose the slavering beast within; unleash a ravenous, antisocial blood lust.

• I have to stay away from you, PASTA, I just can’t control myself around you….once I rip into your yellow casing...

So sometimes it just feels easier not to eat anything at all.... and that way, lies an eating disorder.

There seems to be no going back to those innocent times of early childhood, when you ate whatever the fuck you wanted and didn’t even understand the concept of weight.
I've written blog posts about losing weight and I've written about trying not to fetishisise food; especially around my children, but I don't think I'll ever be able to have a Zen-like, take it or leave it, 'Oh, is it that time already? I forgot to have lunch.' approach to it. [Obviously because, we need it for our survival, none of us can] And, now that the season of gluttony is upon us, it seems futile to even try...

Eating is a sociable experience and the most fun people to socialise with are not the ones who know the calorie content of everything (and tell you about it). That's fine if you want to subscribe to that, but leave me to my potatoes, please!