Food judgement

By Allan Yap & Nigel A. Skelchy

Food is central to our lives.

But everyday we make choices to eat certain foods. We're fortunate to be in that position really.

Questions fill our day; "where shall we go tonight to eat?" "what shall we eat?" "ooo lets be healthy tonight and eat a salad?" "No lah, can't eat that tonight lah, trying to lose weight." "Aiyo, my cholesterol too high I'm eating soup/salad for the next 3 months." "Tonight is my cheat night so I can eat anything. Let's pig out."

Sound familiar?

We make judgements about our food based on our own experiences. And food means so many things to us. It's nourishment. It's comfort. It's community. It's love. It's enjoyment. It's soothing. It's guilt. It's upliftment. And the list goes on.

We celebrate with food. We commiserate with food. We sooth with food. We commune over food. And we fill unhappiness with food. We also punctuate happiness with food.

Is it surprising that food occupies such a ginormous portion of our psyche? And is it surprising that it's also one of the sensual pleasures that perhaps gives us the most joy or the most grief? We deny ourselves then binge. We feel bad for denying ourselves and reward USING food.



We look in trepidation at our expanding waistlines or lack of 6 packs (ya KL, you know who you are) and then foresee a period of desolation. Oh NO, we have to SACRIFICE food. Pull back on all that we hold dear and Good (as in yummy) and eat all that is GOOD (as in good for you). And never the twain between Good and GOOD shall meet.

For one thing, when we go down that path, we make judgements about "Good" and "Bad" food. "Good" food is usually associated with tasteless, sawdust-y, dry, and did I mention tasteless?

"Bad" food - 3 words; "deep," "fried," and "butter." Eat and be guilty.

In actual fact, it's the judgement that we put into the food that make it that way.

Can you imagine if you took that judgement and threw it away?

All food is actually possible for nourishment. It's just that on a daily basis, you wouldn't eat Foie Gras all the time. Or Kentucky Fried Chicken. Or Mcdonalds. Or keropok.

Mostly, we'd eat our 3 meals a day of vegetables, meat, and rice.

Instead of then looking at food as "evil" or "bad" what if we switched our perception to make food "EVERYDAY" food and "SOMETIMES" food? And we ask ourselves daily, "ooo, today is a day for "everyday" food. So you eat your everyday food without the side dish of judgement and your emotions stay out of it. And periodically during the week, you have your "sometimes" food. Perhaps 3 or 4 meals per week? Out of a total of 21 (7 days a week x 3 - assuming you eat 3 times a day - healthy eating should really be 5 to 6 small meals per day but that's the topic for another post)? Can you imagine?

Just that switch of perception might be sufficient to prevent the tiring emotions of guilt and everything else that accompanies emotional eating.

It's working for me.