h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sorry. Chest feels much lighter now.

hi Agapanthus,

I'm not sure what size 15 (or 16) is! I am originally from Canada and I think the sizing is different there. And now I live in Spain and I have no idea what the sizes mean - 42, 44, 46, etc. I usually make my clothes.

Anyhow, size 16 doesn't sound 'fat' to me. And they do say that having a bit of extra flesh on one's body makes you more immune to colds, flu and gives you more physical stamina in general.

It sounds like you also have more emotional stamina. That you have the more important issues worked out. And who knows, perhaps size 15 is exactly the place your body feels most comfortable. Someone else posted earlier that it is not a good idea to use those charts (can't remember what they are called) to assess one's ideal body weight. And I agree. I always weigh more than I look. I think cos I am quite muscular and big-boned (and yes, at the moment somewhat chubby! ) but if I suddenly weighed what the charts said I should I would probably look too thin.

az

along side the BMI it says that otehr things have to be taken into account such as build etc. and that it is not the only measure of health

The whole BMI thing is ridiculous as it concentrates on weight. So if you go down the gym, burn off all the fat and replace it with muscle, you'll actually weigh *more*. I vote BMI goes into Thread 101!

HA! indeed, and well done on getting down a few dress sizes. 15 is a good size, isn't it?

(I don't have a size, I'm a 38 on the bottom and down to a 44 at the top, but I can't translate that out of German into UK sizes)

QB and Ivan, nice to see you here.

Ivan - your mother must have found her childhood very traumatic, that's a horrible thought that her subconscious mind has never recovered. My Grandad would eat stale (even mouldy) bread all his life, because of shortages during the 1920s when he was a little boy, he just became used to the taste. I'm guessing that there are a lot of people in their agegroups who have a very strange (to us) relationship with food. I'm wondering if they understand the deprivation in the third world a lot better than we do, or if it just passes them by.

QB - I feel terribly sorry for your aunty if she has to lose her feet. If her obesity is mostly genetic, it seems that there isn't all that much she can do about it. At least you have seen the dangers, it's hard isn't it (I'm trying not to get fat because my grandma and other memembers of our family died from weight-related heart conditions) I'm panicing about my mother right now, because she's getting bigger and bigger.

I have massive issues with food critics too - but mostly that's because my husband is a chef. He has a very strange relationship with food. To him, eating is a pleasure. He definitely falls into the "lives to eat" category. But he sees it (he specialises in desserts) mostly as raw materials to make something that looks, feels and tastes nice.

Strange

I'm sitting here at the end of the day thinking "man, I've been good... only 2 meals, and one of them was a tiny bowl of porridge - skimmed milk and nothing else but oats - and the other was a sandwich"

that's not good... on the other hand, if I'd had 3 normal meals, I'd be sitting here working out how to compensate for my "overeating" tomorrow.

Occasionally, though, I can forget about that enough to enjoy a lovely meal. Those are the good days with food.

Reddyfreddy - depending on the timing, I might even be in Melbourne at the same time as you. Canberra's the sort of place that just has to be left, every now and then.

Azahar - I've lived here 33 years, with the odd bit of parole, and I haven't been eaten by the wildlife yet . OK, so a bloke got taken by a croc a couple of weeks ago, but that's only 1 out of 20 million of us. And yes, there's a bird in Queensland that can kick a man to death, but it hasn't happened lately. Come on over, the weather's great.

But you were asking about food. There's still a lot of people here who live on meat-and-three-veg, but there's a lot more variety available now. Most people would use Asian ingredients regularly, for instance, and there's lots of Mediterranean-type things available, which is particularly good in our summer weather. Just about everything else is available here too; the last census showed up about 200 ethnic groups, so that means about 200 types of restaurant. No national dishes as such, unless you count 'char-grilled kangaroo fillet (rare or medium) with a red wine glaze, served with couscous and wilted baby bok choy'. I've seen this on three menus in the last month, and it's rather tasty. There's nothing quite like eating the national emblem.

But seriously - there is no national cuisine yet, but I think it's just a matter of time, and it will eventually be some blending of South-East Asian and Mediterranean influences, with a few native ingredients like bush tomato [nothing like a tomato], macadamia, wattleseed [just grit, really] and quandong ['native peach', but more interesting than it sounds]. And kangaroo, of course.

That being said, there's still a lot of European/British dishes on the menu, but it depends where you are. In South Australia there's lots of German/Scandinavian products; this is a result of 19th century settlement by Germans, and 20th century settlement by Lutheran refugees who felt at home in a place with German-style produce. (Sad side-effect - I'm now stranded in Canberra, 1300km from home, and I can't get a decent mettwurst or blutwurst for love or money. They all seem to eat either stodge or Mediterranean things around here.)

Ivan.

Hi Sho.

Yes, my mother's childhood sounds like undiluted hell sometimes. My grandmother is still with us, and her relationship with food is unusual too. She hoards every last scrap, and I eat at her house with a degree of trepidation as so many things in her fridge just aren't safe . Which leads to another food/emotions thing - a person's attachment to the food they had in childhood. My grandmother used to make her own rollmops with weak tea, lemon juice and salt; sometimes she'd unroll shop-bought rollmops and rinse them off, then re-pickle them in lemon juice so that they'd taste almost like the ones she could get in the 1930's.

In 1991 it became possible for her to go 'home', if she so chose; she pointed out that she'd been in Australia for twice as long as she'd ever lived in Estonia, so she couldn't see the point of travelling back at her age, even for a visit. But she also said that at least she'd be able to eat good herring and rollmops again. When I found genuine Estonian rollmops at the local shop and bought her a jar, she fell upon it with glee and ate the lot at one sitting. Strange behaviour from an old lady who usually eats very little, but she'd been craving the blasted things for fifty years...

I can't stand rollmops, by the way.

Ivan.

Hi all,

Sorry about the long silence but I have loads of w**k to do and I can only spare my lunch time for H2G2ing, as opposed to normal when I peek at the site everytime my boss leaves the room!

I haven't had time to read all the backlog properly, so excuse me if I repeat things others have said, I don't mean it

Azahar, I don't eat from anxiety, in fact I tend to get obsessed with tidying and cleaning my house if I am anxious. That or I climb into bed and have a good cry into my teddy bear! I do have strong urges to eat if I have been hurt (physical or mental) or if I've been disappointed. I can only assume that when I was little my mother would give me sweets or cakes to dry up my tears! Of course there's something in my own nature that has carrried this on to adulthood rather than letting the association of comfort eating end in childhood. I've found out that a big and someone to talk things through does a lot more good than a family sized bar of

Sho, I do find it ever so upsetting that my aunty might need her feet amputated due to her weight. While I do agree that genetic disposition may be a big factor in weight gain, people should try their best to control their weight regardless of the cause. The obese people in my family seem to accept their weight as a fact of life, and have never tried to change their diet. I couldn't continue with my bad eating habits if I knew my feet were at risk! I just don't understand it! I have been worried about my Mum as she has put on weight gradually in recent years, but has suddenly ballooned since moving to Wales to live near her family. It seemed the bad eating habits were rubbing off on her and I was concerned that she might end up a similar gigantic size. However she had a tricycle for Christmas and started a diet in Januray. With my Dad's support, regular exercise and sticking to the diet she has lost over a stone! I am very proud of her and I can't wait to see her next month!

I had a thought last night that it doesn't matter if you're a bit overweight as long as you're physicaly and mentally happy. If your weight affects your physical health then you must take measures to loose some weight. If you are unhappy and feel un-attractive as you think that you are too large then a sensible controlled weight loss plan could well improve your self estime. However there are people that are a little bit overweight and it suits them and they are happy. This isn't really a problem apart from the media and society feed us a different view.

I feel much happier with my body now that I exercise regularly. I'm not stick thin and some bits wobble a lot, but I am very proud of the parts that have slimmed and toned over the year. My calves in particular have got nice and firm with the cycling, but they're not thin legs any more! I can't wear some of my boots as they don't do up, but I am proud of my muscly legs as they are proof of a year of cycling!

I have to get on with my marketing reports.
I'm not sure if I've furthered the conversation or just had a rant!

See you again tomorrow, same bat-time, same bat-place!

QB

Ivan - how can you not like rollmops??!! but then, they are one of those foods with which I have an "emotional attachment" - they remind me of childhood trips to the Hamburg fish market with my dad. Special occasions as it only happened twice or three times a year (I was at boarding school) but it was one of those things that we always did, and it was always a fantastic day out.

Just the thought of eating them again (we used to have them for breakfast) makes me break out in a

QB - you're right. Being stick thin is obviously not for either of us, but I think we both have to be careful not to become too obsessive about this weight thing. I have noticed recently, that I look fat to myself. That is, when I look in the mirror I see a fat person looking back. I'm not fat. I know that on one level, but still I am convinced that I am.

Is that strange? And maybe it has less to do with my relationship with food than my relationship with myself. Either way, it affects the way I view and eat food.

Oh, I find it quite easy to dislike rollmops. The taste, the texture, the knowledge that the thing hasn't been cooked... But then, I'm off all and other aquatic creatures since I caught typhoid through eating dodgy prawns in a third-world slum.

And yes, I find it more important to be happy with myself and my life than to be thin. The last time I was thin, it was because of those dodgy prawns, and I'll never be free of all of the side-effects of that episode. If I'm a bit on the not-thin side of things, at least I know I'm healthy.

My main problem is that I'm a reasonably good cook and I enjoy cooking. When this is combined with a tendency to eat because of boredom, things do get out of control. In a way, hootoo is becoming part of my weight-control programme; I'm sitting here typing this, I'm not bored, and I'm not in the kitchen...

Hear, hear, Ivan. I cook for entertainment too! I now have to discipline myself to only cook what I actually need to eat, or can freeze, otherwise I'd be cooking non-stop and having to chuck half of it away. Think I've got it under control now.

My family ask me why I don't make a career out of it - open up a restaurant or whatnot. Apart from the business risk and expense, I don't think I'd enjoy cooking so much if I *had* to do it all the time - the fact that it's voluntary is what makes it more fun to me. Is that ?

hi Reddyfreddy,

I also love cooking and, as in your case, it has sometimes been suggested that I open a restaurant. I even seriously considered it when I was living in Bristol. But in the end I think I am a bit like you in the sense that if I *had* to cook every day as my job I would stop enjoying it.

I've never had children so I have also never had to 'cook on demand' for a family. Every day! I wonder how that situation might also take the spontaneous joy out of both food and cooking.

az

After browsing through a fair few of the comments I began to realise that the main gist of the converstion seems to be about being overweight and dieting (or not). I'm underweight, always have been. It wasn't particularly nice being the stick insect at school but I must admit I do think it is harder for those with a little extra. My son is also a stick, but my daughter is overweight. She asks me why? I say I think its because you eat too much crap. She doesn't think so. We started writing down everything she eats in a day so that we can check it out. It turns out (as she admits herself) that there is an awful lot of stuff, particularly ice-cream,that probably isn't necessary. My sister is also a little on the large side. What can you do?? I'm addicted to hummus.

Mmmmm, hummus,

And chocolate amd brandy-flavoured ice-cream

Presumably the hummus is not eaten with the icecream...?

I can only cope with cooking for fun. Once upon a time I did think about being a chef, but I gave up the idea; I thought it would be less fun than just mucking about in the kitchen and pleasing myself. I know someone who simply hates cooking; she married a chef, thinking this would solve all her problems, but she found out that he never cooks at home because that's 'too much like work'.

Does anyone know a professional chef who cooks for fun at home?

No, I don't mix the hummus witht the ice-cream! That sounds like a pregnancy-craving thing to me

Well, my brother and sister-in-law run a cafe, so they eat at work rather than at home, I guess. I must admit, I wouldn't want to ook full-time either. It would take all the fun out.

"ook", obviously, is the new technique of ookery, which has superceded the old-fashioned "cookery"

I have a mental picture of people sitting in a kitchen, in an atmosphere of gloom and despair, saying 'ook' at irregular intervals. Considering the kitchenhands I worked with 15 year ago, this is not impossible.

..................

hi happygirl,

<>

Actually, that wasn't the intention I had when I started the thread, though I knew it would probably come up. It was more the idea to discuss the connections between emotions and food.

Humans have turned the consumption of food into a pleasure, not just a physical necessity. Much the same as with sex. And so it seems that many people end up with somewhat (or quite) complicated relationships with food.

az