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

Ivan and Reddyfreddy,

My father was an 'Irish Newfie' and used to make the most vile stuff like corned beef & cabbage, fried bloodsausage and head cheese on toast. I mean, even the words bloodsausage and head cheese . . . *head* cheese??? He used to tell us that this is what he grew up on in Newfoundland, which seemed a poor excuse for us to have to eat it. Happily he didn't do much cooking.

az

Hi Az.

That all sounds like Vogon cookery, if you ask me. What could the motivation be? 'I had to eat all this stuff, and I see no reason why you should escape', maybe?

Dad was fond of corned beef, cabbage, and white sauce. Fortunately nobody else was, so it didn't happen all that often.

When my father made corned beef and cabbage I think all he did was stick a chunk of corned beef and a cabbage or two in a huge pot and boil it up. Only edible with lots and lots of ketchup.

I quite like cabbage now though, depending on how it's prepared.



az

Ah Cabbage. The curse of North European Children.

I will eat cabbage if I know who has cooked it. I love sauerkraut, red cabbage and so on, but that is because my parents fed us such a huge variety of food and different cuisines when we were small.

So, along with the feeling, with many others here, that it is a sin to waste food, (and I'll go along with the "eating to hedge against starvation" theory too) I've also grown up with the idea that you can't say anything about a food until you have tried it.

I will not eat certain food, offal (mostly because I'm a vegetarian) but generally because I'm squeamish about the idea. Although, I do love the taste of liver. I don't like the taste of celery (long celery) raw, but cooked it's lovely - that is coupled with the "celery is diet food" thing from boarding school when we were permanently starving ourselves.

I'm getting tied in knots here. My relationship with food is complicated, but getting better.

Oh, and as for the hungry thing: when I was in the Army there were several times on exercise when we didn't know when we would get our next meal, but we always knew that we would get one at some point. But trying to sleep (ha! in the middle of a field) with an empty stomach is not a pleasant experience)

Oh, btw, my hubs will not eat rice pudding. When he and his 5 siblings were small, their mother had to go into hospital for a few weeks. A woman came to cook, and she gave them rice pudding for lunch every single day.

On the other hand, their father worked for a chain of ice-cream shops in the North East of England, and for some reason brought them an apple pie on Fridays. So, for him, Apple Pie brings back happy memories of the whole family tucking into apple pie and icecream on a Friday, before the main course (they didn't have a freezer)

hi Sho,

Although I quite like rice pudding I was totally put off tapioca pudding after a friend referred to it as 'fish eyes in glue'! Ick.

Speaking of celery . . . you reminded me that when my youngest brother was very young he had a passion for crunchy vegetables like carrots and celery. He would pass on crisps and sweets and ask if he could have crunchy veggies. And instead of encouraging this very healthy behaviour, he was made to feel like he was WEIRD for not wanting to eat 'normal' kid food. What a shame, huh?

So now he is overweight and, I think, quite an emotional eater.

az

Aw, your poor brother!!

My girls are hilarious. When the BoFrost (frozen food delivery) guy turns up my two (as do all the other kids in the village) run out to meet him. So, they were out the other day, and the neighbour saw them for about the fist time on such an occasion. She turned to the hubs and asked if they were waiting for lollies or icecream.

He told her to watch and listen.

Poor delivery guy had too knee-highs (they are 7 and 5) jumping round him shouting "did you remember to bring our spinach?"

heh heh heh

It's their favourite food, swiftly followed by broccoli.

They love to crunch on carrots, paprika and other such stuff. they particularly like olives, so much so that I have to ration them, and #2 loves dried apricots.

Of course, they love sweeties too, but I try to keep them rationed without them realising.

Now we've started this thread, I'm wondering what the Gruesomes' emotional attatchments to food will be.

Sho,

I didn't even *know* what broccoli was until I left home at age fifteen. At which point I immediately lost about 40 pounds and even became a vegetarian for awhile. The first time I ever ate spinach (I was about 17) I almost melted from pleasure. It had been lightly steamed and tossed with sour cream, lemon juice and freshly ground black pepper.

I'm really surprised that I have any teeth left or that my bones developed after a childhood diet of mostly tinned foods, starch and fat. The only fresh vegetable I was even remotely familiar with when I was a child was the occasional tomato. And I don't remember there ever being fresh fruit in the house. Hell, it's a wonder I didn't get scurvy!

My youngest brother is nineteen years older than me. By the time he was growing up there was a different mother in the house and all but one of his older siblings had moved away. Yes, it is a shame that he lost his crunchy veggie addiction!

az

Obviously I meant to say that my youngest brother is nineteen years *younger* than me . . .

az

it just goes to show, that you can grow up and be healthy without all the fuss and bother that a lot of people go to

Having said that, fruit and veg wasn't as intensively produced when we were kids, and therefore not so dangerous.

A lot of my German friends throw up their hands in horror when I tell them that we mostly eat frozen veg. But I contest that it is way more healthy than stuff which has been on a lorry then in a shop for 3 days (losing vitamins all the while) before they eat it.

But, and I don't admit this often in RL, it has more to do with the fact that if I buy fresh I end up throwing lots away (I only cook at weekends - it's a complicated arrangement)

I finally got around to reading the article you posted at the beginning of this thread, and have realised that (apart from being slim and long limbed in a striped Biba skirt) I am that mother: feeding my children, while eating nothing myself. I hope they don't see that as a role model (usually I'm telling them that I'll eat later with their dad)

And I can totally relate to the Thin-but-gorgeous thing. I lost a lot of weight last year, and the first thing men said were "are you ok?" followed by "have you lost weight, you look good", but the first thing women said was "you look fab" and the question of my health almost never came up.

One of my colleagues (female) became covinced that I had bulimia because I went to the loo a lot, and she thought it was usually after I ate something. She hadn't noticed my new regime of drinking about 2 litres of water a day at work! But she was the only one of the women who noticed that. The others just asked me for weight-loss tips!

And, I had a strange e-bay experience trying to sell some old business suits: I mentioned that they were barely worn and in excellent condition (I bought them in February, by April they were all too big) because I had slimmed down. Nobody wanted to buy them, but I got loads of e-mails asking which diet I'd used!

Maybe there are very few women who have a healthy relationship with food?

Sho,

<>

Maybe. I know I don't. In fact, I seem to be rebelling a bit recently. Because previously I was always so neurotic about what I ate and was always thin (or at least thin-ish). Everything I consumed was a measure of my own self-esteem. Too much? BAD az! Too little? GOOD az! And finally I just decided - f**k that sh*t! Okay, it was also the op and hormonal changes afterwards that had to do with my recent weight gain. But you know what? Twenty years ago I don't think I would have walked out the door looking like I do now. I would have been so ashamed of myself. Now I couldn't give a monkey's.

I think the thing I am going through with food right now is also quite complicated, but unlike yourself I am going the other way. I - horror of horrors! - have allowed myself to get FAT!!! And you know what? Nobody cares. I am still considered to be attractive. Imagine that! The only person who has commented on my weight gain is my street friend Miguel (one-legged heroin addict) and I think this is mostly out of envy because he is just skin and bones.

Also, it behoves a 'woman of a certain age' to carry a bit more weight to fill out what gravity is constantly pulling down!

az

ah, tell me about gravity!!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about being thinner, I'm very happy about it. I just wish I'd discovered stress-related-weight loss when I did a job where the work was more "serious" than what I do now. Back then a mistake could have literally had fatal consequences, or very serious. Now it just costs the company money.

I had a friend visit me today. She's tall and slim and, apparently (or so I thought) no food issues. So, out of interest I asked her.

Yep, petrified to eat sometimes, if she had a big breakfast for example, in case she gets stuck in her chair at work (she saw it happen once)

Hi there, can I butt in and talk about my own "relationship" with food?

I will start off by saying that during the past couple of years, I have finally started to find a balance between healthy eating and "watching" what I eat. I've learned a lot about the ways in which my emotions and psychological issues affect what and how much I eat. But while I think that I've improved my diet in terms of what I eat- i.e., eliminating a lot of preservatives, sticking to fresh and/or organically grown foods, and adhering to a basically vegetarian diet- I still haven't quite got a handle on how, why, and how much I eat.

For most of my life, I was very, very thin. As an adolescent, I was made fun of for being underweight. In my early twenties, I was the envy of my peers because I could eat whatever and however much I chose and not gain weight. At 23 years old, I barely weighed 100 lbs, at 5' 3". That's not so bad, eh?

As a child, I received bizarre "mixed messages" from my mother regarding food, as many other people seem to have. I was forced to eat things I didn't like. I would have to sit at the table all night, picking at my food, until it was gone. If I didn't clean my plate, I was punished, sent to bed, and then served what was left for breakfast the following morning. Most days I was lucky enough that my mother couldn't be bothered to get up, and didn't have breakfast at all. Not eating breakfast is a bad habit I still have.

Although I was clinically underweight, and admittedly much too thin, as an adolescent, I developed bulimia. To be honest, I think it was more of a control issue than a food-related issue. I especially had a problem with sweets. As a child, I was never allowed sweets- not out of concern for my health, but because my mother, who weighed in at well over 300 lbs at the time and still gets bigger, hoarded all of them for herself. The only way I could "earn" the "privilege" of having sweets was through expressions of affection I honestly did not feel, as a reward for "good" behavior. That said, I would like to add that I was always a well-behaved, obedient child, soft-spoken, unobtrusive, and an honor student. That didn't qualify as "good" behavior, but acquiescence and submissiveness did.

So, as an adolescent, whenever I ate sweets or junk food, I always felt an overwhelming need to purge myself. I don't know even still if that was motivated by a feeling of not deserving the "reward", or by rebellion against the self-effacing behavior which had always earned said "reward" previously. This need has continued long into adulthood, and is always in the back of my mind even still.

Now, however, I have other issues. I am both an emotional eater and a carbohydrate addict. I have a physical condition which is quite painful, which is easily self-medicated with wine, starchy foods, and chocolate. The problem being that in the long run, I wind up feeling worse, both physically and emotionally, afterward.

I alternate between strict calorie counting and rigid dietary allowances, and binge eating. I know this is not healthy. I know that self-deprivation leads to binging, so I try really hard to allow myself treats in moderation. But so often, I lack the will power to stop after a reasonable amount of certain things. Then, my reaction is to either 1) want to purge myself of the "bad" things I've taken in, 2) deprive or even starve myself for days to offset the excessive caloric intake, or 3) throw in the towel and gorge myself into oblivion. None of these are a healthy option, but I find it hard to avoid falling into these traps.

What's made it worse is that several years ago I was seriously injured in a major car wreck. Between a few months of being hospitalized, and taking loads of steroids, I put on nearly 90 pounds in under two months. I was able to lose 55 pounds in under a year, through exercise and proper diet. So I *know* I can do it. My problem is, though I am only about 15 or 20 pounds overweight, I feel like I'm morbidly obese and repulsive. It's been hard for me, adopting healthier eating habits and consuming better and more nutritious foods, yet still being "fat", if you know what I mean.

No matter how many people tell me I'm not fat, maybe a bit overweight, but not dangerously so and not unattractive, I still feel like a disgusting slob. I'm hypoglycemic, so deprivation isn't good. But when I eat, even if it's because I'm hungry, I feel overwhelmed with guilt and like a bad person. Every time I consume a meal and enjoy it, it makes me want to vomit it all back up.

The really weird part is that I absolutely LOVE to cook! I am a brilliant cook, everyone loves to eat my culinary creations. Cooking, for me, is a creative expression, and my concoctions are works of art. But I don't enjoy eating them! What a drag, that the thing which relaxes me most and brings me so much pleasure, also serves to torment me in the worst possible way... I've created this delicious (and almost always healthy!) meal, and I can't sit down and enjoy it, because I don't deserve it, I shouldn't eat it, and I'm too d***ed fat anyway! It's not fair!

Sorry for ranting and rambling for so long. Finding this thread was like a miracle to me, this is an issue I have so much trouble with. I'm honestly hoping some of you can be of some help to me. My emotions and attitude where food is concerned are so unhealthy and contradictory and confusing! I want to lose some weight, but any more binging and purging could kill me, and I'm limited in what kind of exercises I can handle by my physical condition. It feels like I just can't win, sometimes.

Forgive me for intruding, for going on so long, and for being so selfish. But I really do hope that I can gain some better understanding from this.

Psychocandy, first of all, welcome to the thread
you most certainly are not intruding.

I can relate to the getting my evening meal dished up to me for breakfast, it only happened once and traumatised me and my mum so much we never repeated the exercise. We both learned from that.

I have to say, here, that my parents never forced me to eat anything I genuinely didn't like. They actually never forced me to eat anything at all. But school was different...

I digress.

Psychocandy, that feeling of guilt after eating, even if it was a "good" meal at the right time and when you were hungry, is much much more common than you might think.

Have you tried talking to someone about it in RL? Even if it's just someone who nods now and again, and you don't really feel they understand, speaking out loud helps to organise your own thoughts and feelings - although you seem pretty aware of what they are.

I really don't know what to say, but I'm sure someone better at this stuff will be along soon.

In the meantime:

Thank you, Sho.

I have tried talking with lots of people, especially the menagerie of therapists and psychiatrists I've seen for this and that, the eating disorder not the least of them.

It does help talking about it. I am lucky I guess to be self-aware, but that doesn't always help with tackling the problem!

You know, a lot of the time you talk with people who care about you, and their response is to tell you that you *are* beautiful, and you're okay, and they love you anyway. It helps in a lot of ways, but it doesn't help with the core issue, the feelings from the past which lead to the present behavior! That's what myself and lots of people need help with, I think...

Anyway, thanks for reassuring me that I'm not intruding here, and that I'm not alone in feeling this way. I appreciate that!

And thanks for the s. Those mean a lot, and go a long way. Thank you!

Not really sure I can contribute much other than to say "Hi!", Psychocandy, and give you a .

Like the moniker.

Should all the stars shine in the sky
They couldn't outshine your sparkling eyes

Thanks, ReddyFreddy! I've seen you round before, you seem like an interesting person to talk with!

Thanks for the . Those always help. And thanks for the bit from "Some Candy Talking", it's another of my favorite tunes! You're a fan of JMC then?

I picked the moniker 'cause they're my favorite band, but also 'cause it sums me up quite well... equally sweet and mental.

NB MODERATOR..pencil sharp...LOG ENTRY the trails from "who's on line" to the chat, science "ASK THE COMMUNITY" are a good thing!
Thank You!

I like this "h2g2" chat stuff...good idea. Can't contribute much but I like the trailer that gets you here.

Oh and az..

I wouldn't exactly call myself a fan...I have Psychocandy on CD, and went to see them once (Liverpool University, 1984 - but they were so interested in making feedback noises back then that you couldn't really hear what they were playing).

RF

Well, thanks for that quote from the lyrics anyway, it really hit the spot, so to speak! I'm a big fan of theirs, and listened to a CD whilst getting ready to venture out this evening. Thanks for the inspiration.

Hopefully someone might come along who can relate to what I've said- and hopefully you don't all think I'm a big whinging snot-nosed baby for asking for help.

morning psychocandy!

Nice to see you here. I'm just making coffee and getting ready for work so I may or may not have time to reply properly to your postings. But I wanted to welcome you to the thread - will be back soon!



az