The 'food of love' thing: How I learned to stop hating food and how to cook

 I was chatting with someone the other day about emotional eating, and she made a remark that "comfort foods" could be "like an old, familiar, good friend."

I was speechless. I have never felt that way about food in my life.

No, I had despised, loathed and feared food. I wanted nothing more than to take a daily pill and never, ever have to eat again. It wasn't a friend, it was my bitterest enemy. And when I succumbed to emotional eating, it was never comforting or reassuring; it was like going back to the spouse who beat you, because it was all you knew.

Something like ten years ago, I had a food epiphany, and slowly, with the help of hours spent watching the Food Network (which was different then than it is today), I healed that relationship. I wrote about it on my dog website, since this was in pre-blog days. I'm going to re-publish it here, because it's been on my mind a lot lately.

The 'food of love' thing

Ask people with weight problems if they love food, and most will say yes – too much! But do they?

If your consumption of food is accompanied by feelings of shame and the desire to stop eating even as you eat, if you hide what you eat, if you measure, weigh, balance, and ration what you eat, if you lie in bed at night cataloguing the day's food intake with guilt and regret, that isn't love. Or rather, it's only "love" in the way a woman who is involved with a man who cheats on her and insults her in front of her friends and blows their joint savings at the track is in "love."

True love, on the other hand, enriches your life. It makes you feel more connected with the world around you. It softens your heart, and helps you feel better about yourself and others. Can someone who has spent his or her life seeing food as the enemy and the kitchen as a battleground find true love with food?

The answer is yes, and I'm the living proof. And it wasn't a diet plan or nutritionist or therapist or doctor who changed the way I related to food. It was a TV chef named Emeril Lagasse.

For those who don't know, Emeril hosts an unbelievably popular daily show called Emeril Live on cable's Food Network. Emeril has a few opinions about food that fly in the face of common wisdom about healthy eating, "pork fat rules" probably being the most obvious. At first it was hard to understand all the bacon fat and butter and exactly how that was supposed to fit into a nutritious diet. But Emeril's message started to get through to me after I read the book Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon, a cookbook cum manifesto reclaiming traditional ways of preparing food and questioning our society's demonization of dietary fat.

But it was not ideas, facts or theories that cured my dysfunctional relationship with food. It was Emeril himself, with his silly "BAM!" as he threw a palmful of salt onto a dish, the look of glee on his face as he added "thirty thousand cloves of garlic" to a stew, the rapture apparent as he solemnly asked his adoring studio audience, "Can't you feel the love in there?" as he added sausage to a pan of greens.

And they did. And so did I, as I finally understood that to learn to cook, you have to lose your fear. You have to decide that it's worth it to plan a meal in advance. To sit down at the table and enjoy dinner. To care what you are putting into your mouth, and appreciate what it smells, tastes, and feels like. To build into your life the regular stocking and re-stocking of your refrigerator and kitchen cabinets, and not always have a meal be something you think of and prepare approximately five minutes before your blood sugar crashes to levels that leave you light-headed and irritable (or worse, five minutes after).

Isn't that what true love is about? Being thoughtful, appreciative, considerate? Making room in your life for the one you love?

The other way Emeril taught me how to cook was by demonstrating. I suppose all cooking shows do that, but I'd never had the slightest interest in a cooking show before this one. Watching Emeril slice food, add food to pots, and sauté, brown, deglaze, and perform other previously-arcane culinary arts, I found that I was able to do those things myself. I could see what they looked like, see what it meant to "brown" a chicken breast, understand what "blanching" was, see how plunging broccoli into an ice bath would stop it from cooking and preserve its green color. I'm sure that many people have this experience in their own homes, being taught to cook by a mother or grandmother, but that wasn't what happened to me. I honestly believed I couldn't cook, and my rare attempts at it produced food that tasted all right most of the time, but no pleasure or joy on my part. My culinary dreams involved eating at restaurants, not in my own dining room. My definition of a successful home-cooked meal was one that I could make in less than five minutes in a single pan.

I know that many of us who struggle with weight problems and eating disorders would consider it a huge relief if we could stop eating altogether and just subsist on a daily pill. The struggle with food can consume your life. But you could stop struggling, and stop disrespecting yourself with fast food, binge eating, starvation dieting, eating things you don't like because they are "good for you," secret eating, last-minute meals, and self-loathing. Because it's not only food I'm suggesting deserves your love – it's YOU.

Still don't get it? As Emeril would assure you, it's a food of love thing. Believe it. 

Comments

[Pamela Picard]

Very insightful. Thank you.

[Mara57]

Good friends of mine who are ALWAYS struggling with weight issues came over for dinner last night. They said I could provide veggies but they would bring their own meat because they are on Nutrisystem.

One of the entrees they brought was a "grilled beef patty" that comes room temp in a box, listed high fructose corn syrup as ingredient #2 (I guess we should thank god that beef was #1) and is prepared by sitting in a bath of boiling water for 2 minutes before eating. Sort of like one of those sponges that you put in water so it can become usable. All this rather than letting me make them a small beef patty on my grill, from organic beef, seasoned with fresh herbs and spices. They want the pill, I guess, not real food. After claiming that this beef "wasn't bad" they said they need this "system" for portion control.

Please hit me upside the head if I start eating beef out of a box with HFCS added to it!

[Timy]

I had a love/hate relationship with food ever since I was a teenager and I've had a similar experience as you did. In my case it was TV chef Jamie Oliver who was able to bring back the love and respect for good food for me. I've seen all his TV shows and I've got all his cook books and his sheer enthusiasm for cooking good food and using organic produce has taught me to no longer fear food, but to celebrate and enjoy it.

I've been cooking his recipes for a while now and have been able to maintain my weight and I'm feeling healthier and more energetic than I ever did. He may be viewed by some as pushy with regard to his campaigns to reform people's eating habits and others may not like his exuberant style in general, but I think he's a genius with food and I'll always be grateful for what he did for me.

I now enjoy cooking for myself and inviting people over for dinner. I get pleasure from the entire process, from shopping for the right ingredients to creating beautiful dishes in a relaxed and confident manner and savoring the wonderful end result. For the first time in my life, food is no longer something to feel guilty about or to be anxious over but a pure joy.

[Cindy Steinle]

It's Alton Brown for me. He explains the science and history of foods. His show is like a kids science show I grew up on but is aimed at adults who are afraid to try new things. Mixing in random facts as well as humor he makes food seem fun.