Summary

The author reflects on a lifelong complex relationship with food, from childhood sugar cravings to adult dieting, influenced by personal experiences, societal norms, and emotional triggers.

Abstract

The narrative delves into the author's deep-seated connection with eating, which has been a source of pleasure, guilt, and obsession. It begins with the author's recollection of their father's struggle with dementia and the inability to eat, contrasting with the author's own preoccupation with food since childhood. The author describes a cycle of dieting and bingeing that started in the 1960s, shaped by the era's dietary trends and a family dynamic that included strict rules around eating. A particular childhood memory involves secretly consuming a mixture of butter and brown sugar, hinting at an early onset sugar addiction and a rebellion against parental restrictions. The author acknowledges their intelligence in navigating around these rules and their ongoing struggle with emotional eating, despite claiming to be past such behaviors. The piece concludes with the author's current approach to food, which is less about rules and more about personal nourishment and happiness, while recognizing the complexity of dietary choices influenced by individual needs, culture, and daily circumstances.

Opinions

The author views eating as an integral part of life, intertwined with survival and well-being.
There is a sense of horror and sadness associated with the author's father's inability to eat due to dementia.
The author criticizes the diet culture of the 1960s, particularly the emphasis on avoiding fats and the use of artificial sweeteners and substitutes.
The author admits to having a sugar addiction and a history of rule-breaking to satisfy their cravings.
There is an acknowledgment of the emotional aspects of eating, with food being used as a coping mechanism for stress and other emotions.
The author expresses a current preference for intuitive eating, choosing foods that provide enjoyment and nourishment without strict dietary rules.
The author implies that diet should

Pyrex Bowl with Brown Sugar and Butter

On eating and the beginning of my addiction to sugar

I have thought long and hard about eating throughout my life.

Not just thought but practiced and regretted and binged and dieted and hated myself and loved or hated what I was eating. I became a good cook, even made my living as a baker for a while.

I have so many sensations and thoughts and emotions around eating it’s a wonder I have time to do anything else. And, in one important sense, rightly so. After all, eating is a critical part of staying alive and flourishing-or not.

Before my father died, he forgot how to eat. At first, he forgot how to eat things, the natural order of picking up a hamburger with his hands, and eating through all the layers at once. Instead, he took a fork and started with forkfuls of the bun from the top. Watching this was a horrifying experience, my clue that his brain had abandoned him.

Then as dementia progressed, he became unable to even get the food to his mouth without piles of it on the tablecloth or his clothes. Finally, for the last 21 days of his life, he simply could not swallow. Even when persistent and attentive caregivers got the food to his mouth, he could not get it any further on his own. And he died of starvation.

I have been worrying about what to eat almost forever.

At least since age twelve, when my mother bought the book Stay Slim for Life. My mom, younger sister and I read it and began alternately

Religiously following its rules or
Rebelling against its’ prescripts about dieting-and bingeing instead.

It was the 60s- fats were terrible, and diet sweeteners were in, as were tubs of margarine and chemical creamers for coffee-yuck. Of course, along with that went plenty of guilt and self-loathing. And making judgments about other people who were not ‘Slim for Life.’ Thus began a lifetime of yoyo dieting and obsessing about food.

It probably started when I was preverbal, to be honest, crawling around the floor toward the candy dish my dad used as a torture for me. “No, Jeanie”, he’d say. To the guests, “she’s a very good girl, she knows not to touch it”.

Secretly, maybe in my ‘good girl’ brain, I was figuring out ways to get the candy.

I know as an older child I had this compulsion to run to the kitchen when mom and dad left the house and make up a combination of butter and brown sugar to eat from a small Pyrex bowl in the cupboard.

Standing with the cupboard door between me and anyone who looked into the kitchen, I could eat the mixture from a spoon in relative safety.

Why that particular mixture, you ask? (want the recipe for your binges? She asks suspiciously) I think it was part of the filling for a specific recipe for cinnamon buns my mom used to make, and I always loved it. A spoonful of brown sugar stirred into a spoonful of soft butter “go-to” when making fudge or icing or some actual recipe seemed too difficult.

I had a sugar addiction, coupled with rebellion against rules, going from a young age.

And, I was not a very good little girl. I was a smart little girl and figured out how to get around dad’s rules most of the time. I was punished a few times and I didn’t like it at all. I figured out how to avoid being the one in the wrong. Or the one being caught at it. I could tell you some stories…

I like to think I am beyond all that now. I eat what seems like the best choice of what is available. What will give me nourishment and not make my arthritis kick up, or my stomach ache?

Today I am eating healthy stuff. Yesterday I ate an Asian-flavored pulled pork sandwich on a seeded bun with a red cabbage slaw that was incredible.

I ate it and enjoyed every morsel even though I had wanted to eat lightly and certainly had no plans for any bread.

However, I had just come from an appointment with Social Security. I had been very nervous about it (will they deny me money? Had I done something wrong they had just discovered?) and now was relieved. (notice the emotions begging to be managed by eating?)

So! Lunch at the Atlantic Bakery in Rockland, Maine, with a pulled pork sandwich dripping with saucy coleslaw, seemed just the thing.

I don’t worry too much about any leftover emotional eating, it’s just how I’ve developed. I’m on pretty good terms with my emotions these days. And I’ve learned how to feed myself what makes me happy. I try not to overthink it.

Making rules for eating seems an endless task. What to eat depends on so many variables. Diet needs to fit the individual, the culture, the availability of food, as well as the particular day we’re talking about here. I'm glad I don’t have to do it.

So much to think about. Almost enough to make me want to stir up a big bowl of brown sugar and butter.

Jean Anne Feldeisen is a licensed. clinical social worker, certified hypnotherapist, and certified relationship coach. She writes about mental health, self-esteem, relationships, and couples retiring together. Jean has been reading and writing poetry since age 5. The memoir Dear Milly is her first book. Jean is seventy plus years old