I work in an academic law library and also attend classes at the law school. I've loved libraries since I was very small have worked in them most of my adult life. I've also been a student off-and-on my whole life. It's a source of both amazement and frustration to me that our students seem to eat ALL THE TIME.

They can't sit through class without stuffing food in. They can't sit a few hours in the library without snacking on granola bars and bananas - this despite the fact that we have rules against food in the library.

It wasn't always this way. I know I sound like a dinosaur when I say it, but in my day we didn't eat in class or in the library. And somehow no one starved to death - or even passed out from hunger!

But I'd be willing to bet that "in your day", as in mine, you ate food that nourished your body and didn't leave it screaming for missing nutrients!

I once studied a west African language called Hausa and even spent a summer in Kano in northern Nigeria. It is their custom not to snack between meals and certainly never to walk around in public with food and drink in one's hands.

I was just talking to one of my colleagues from Uganda. She has stated before that it amazes her how much time Americans spend thinking and talking about food.

I asked her what and when they ate when she was in Uganda. She says they had four meals a day - breakfast, lunch, tea, and supper. Supper is consumed very late - right before bedtime. They might have supper at 10 and go to bed at 10:45. She says all the meals were very high in carbs. Of course, they walk everywhere and are very physically active.

She also says there is no snacking between meals. All eating is done at family meals. You don't carry food around the house even. And one doesn't talk about food even. It simply isn't a subject for conversation.

Really interesting.

Edited to add: She also says candy/sweets are for children only - and it's only a rare treat, not a daily thing. An adult would never eat candy.

Also until recently there were no baked goods and little wheat products. They do eat a lot of corn products but their corn is different from ours.

"Edited to add: She also says candy/sweets are for children only - and it's only a rare treat, not a daily thing. An adult would never eat candy."

Even in the US, this has undergone a sea change since I was a kid (I'm 37). It would have been unthinkable when I was a kid to see certain foods sought after by adults - candy, even McDonald's was a "kid" thing or for teenagers, milkshakes, Dairy Queen, etc. Adults just didn't eat that food except very rarely and that has drastically changed since I was little. I bet college attendance and teen junk food culture carried into campus life and then adulthood which started peaking in the 90's has a lot to do with it. There was never even candy in grade school except on Halloween and cupcakes once a month (fundraiser). My friends with kids in school say almost all the teachers give out candy every day and that it's normal.

Ezzactly. That which we eat isn't necessarily food. We have to wonder if by eating it, it makes us a little crazy. Crazy enough to become orthorexic for example. We believe it's food, but it doesn't nourish us. So we grow sick from it, yet we continue to eat it believing it's going to make us better. And round we go. But it says so on the package!

Here's an example I particularly find appropriate. By any measure, alcohol isn't food. Yet when we drink it, the liver will produce, among other things, fatty acids from it. Fatty acids in turn can be used to produce ATP molecules. ATP (adenosyne triphosphate) is the actual fuel that is used for all cellular functions. It follows then that whatever is transformed into ATP must be food. Yet the substance here is alcohol, an acute poison for humans.

This brings me to my next question, what other substance has these two qualities, it's transformed into ATP, and it is poisonous to humans although not acutely but rather chronically? The obvious answer is sugar. Not only can sugar be transformed into ATP directly, it can be transformed into fatty acids and then into ATP. Yet when we eat it in sufficient quantities over a long enough period, i.e chronically, it shows its poisonous nature in humans. Yet here we are, believing that carbohydrate is food, healthy food to boot. No wonder our relationship with food is so messed up.

No, it's not a stretch at all - and it's exactly where I want to go

What a great article. So true, about these two 'extremes', isn't it? I've been there, at both ends of the spectrum. Going too extreme on the dieting front (even within the context of low-carb at times) and obviously went a bit nutso on the fast food and junk while gaining the weight.

Thing is, I just never knew how to eat, how to cook or how to shop for food. Didn't know there was a middle way, and that it wasn't necessary to always be veering back and forth. "Cooking" was sticking a frozen lasagne into the oven. A vegetable was canned corn. Salad was something you forced yourself to eat because you were 'dieting'. Usually topped off with some awful 'low-fat' dressing.

Can you believe I used to think that if it tasted bad, then it was good for you? All-Bran with skim milk comes to mind. Salad with a squeeze of lemon on top. Diet margarine. Melba Toast.

Blech.

Meanwhile, I have never shopped, prepared, and cooked so much in my life. And the food is fabulous!

It's kinda neat though - I'm turning out to be a lot more like my Grandma and Great-Grandma than my Mom in this area.

I feel lucky. I'm out of that 'trap' - the trap of constant dieting or eating junk food.

Really enjoyed this bit:


I couldn't agree more. I am moving away from 'avoiding' foods to welcoming good food. Sure, there's still some stuff that I'll avoid, but my perspective has been changing. I *do* want to enjoy good food and have a nice quality of life re: meals with family and friends.

I think I will put a nice tablecloth on my table today. Already put some fresh flowers into a vase (that my Grandma bought me) on the table yesterday

It used to be impolite to walk around eating, or eat in front of others who weren't eating. Society has changed a lot.

I do however remember people having candy dishes in their houses, especially old ladies. Always centered neatly on a doilie.

Hah! I'm 20 years older than you are, and clearly you never met my mother. Candy, milk shakes, Dairy Queen, ice cream, cake, doughnuts, candy, coffee cakes, candy, anything chocolate, candy .... that was the sort of stuff my mother lived for.

My brother-in-law says his mom was the same way. She used to make him eat carrots and celery, but kept a locked cabinet full of Ring-Dings and Yodels and Funny Bones that were strictly for her.

I wonder if the city background relates. My grandparents grew up on real food but that's because of where/how they lived. My mother grew up on southern food which had some real food and a lot of starch but in her day /area you had to cook. But I grew up on terrible food in part because you didn't have to cook and breakfast cereal, toast and orange juice-esque liquids were omnipresent.

I always had the feeling they weren't for eating though.

LoL. My great-grandma was the queen of candy dishes. Always filled with after-dinner mints, horehound candy or bridge mix.

My grandma (great-granny's daughter-in-law) still does this. She has two dishes. One is filled with nuts for the adults and the other is filled with hard mints for the children. She is also an "old Southern lady" - deep South, Depression-era - who keeps sweets in her house just in case she has company. Food is an event, in its own right, for her. If she knows we're coming, she buys a small tray of desserts - tiny squares of cheesecake and cobbler, petite fours, etc. - and prepares a mini-meal. Everything that isn't baked is pan-fried in bacon grease (from the morning breakfast, of course) and slathered in butter.

On Friday, she turns 85. She's carrying, at most, 20 pounds of extra weight and has no heath problems. She's eaten this way her entire life and has smoked since she was in her 20s, but I'd venture a guess that she's healthier than most people my age. I'd also venture to guess that she's so healthy because food is an event. It isn't an omnipresent comfort, or something to obsess over. Hunger is a signal that it's time to start cooking the next meal, not a terrible, nagging feeling that sends her reaching for a "healthy" granola bar for a quick fix.

Aha! And I thought I was the only one. Wasn't that strange, though? Having treats right there but with a sign (i.e. the grandma) that said "Not for you!".

I question the second criterion the author lists: "2. Does your diet socially isolate you?" If you avoid overpriced or nutritionally deficient foods, that knocks out 3/4 of the restaurants in America. When you ask meal hosts to accommodate you by serving meat/fish/chicken and a non-starchy vegetable, the invitations peter out. When you bring your own food to the pizza lunch at work, you can feel the frowns and long looks.

Does that make you orthorexic or simply committed to eating what keeps you healthy?

I think the question of social isolation is a good one, but it's asked for the wrong reasons.

I remember: SO IF YER FRIENDS ALL JUMPED OFF A CLIFF, WOULD YOU DO IT?!

It used to be that a huge part of what parents drilled into kids was making intelligent decisions *despite* "surrounding culture."

Yet now (politically-philosophically I think this is a side effect of another concept disaster called multiculturalism but never mind I guess) the idea is of borg integration at all costs.

At one time, a good upbringing would teach you that the world was a bit of a crazy place, people especially in the city tended to be a bit crazy, all those snake oil salesmen and flashing lights and magazines were only really interested in your pocketbook not your well-being, and (insert country phrase here like maybe, "You've got to stand for something, or you'll fall for anything").

Yet now, if you are 'socially isolated' because you only eat tofu and you have blue hair and you wear a veil and the plight of the whales are so overwhelming you can't talk of anything else, well all that is perfectly fine, but if you're 'socially isolated' because you eat real food well that's just not psychologically healthy dammit.