Why do we eat what we eat?

You know how KFC have that yummy-yucky chicken salt that everyone else tries to imitate? And the chips are warm and kind of soft.

I used to eat KFC every Saturday. It was a bit of a habit really. Crispy strips and chips. Upsized please. With xxtra salt on the chips. Well then I started to wonder why I put on so much weight. My diet was otherwise really, really healthy. Obviously the Saturday KFC indulgence couldn’t make THAT much difference. Just once a week.

That was a few years ago.
I watched Super Size Me last week. The guy, Morgan, undertakes a controlled experiment … a 30 day McDonald’s binge. The rules are simple. He has to eat McDonalds three meals a day, he can only consume items available at McDonalds, if offered a ‘super-sized’ meal he has to accept, and he’s only allowed to exercise as much as the ‘average American’, which of course is not a whole hell of a lot. At first Morgan was in junk food heaven. But it wasn’t long before he was throwing up mid-meal, suffering palpitations, and had become pasty-faced and flabby.

Morgan followed his rules to the letter, at great risk to his health. Before the experiment, his doctors expected only his cholesterol levels to increase, but only maybe. As it turned out, Morgan became very unwell and in serious danger of “pickling his liver” in the same way someone on a 30 day drinking binge would. The medicos were astounded, had never expected to see this kind of result simply from a fatty diet.

This is scary stuff.

As you know, I fully appreciate food. Food is important to me. I probably spend more on food and wine than any other indulgence. Yet I realised a long time ago that the Saturday KFC had to stop. I don’t eat for habit or for comfort anymore. I eat for flavour and for the joy and excitement that a new ingredient or a new recipe brings. I’m as excited by a sun-warmed ripe tomato as I am by a rich creamy blue cheese. It’s not about calories and it’s not even about body shape. It’s about the psychology of food.

Why do we what we eat?

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