Reading during my lunch break, I started thinking about how much more I would appreciate my food if I knew it was the only meal I could eat all day. I tried to visualize how much more delicious my kale and quinoa salad would taste if it was the first meal I'd had for several days. Having never experienced starvation, the imagery gave me pause. I suddenly had greater appreciate for my meal."He has save his spit for over an hour. She had told him to think of biting into a lemon to make the spit flow, but he couldn't remember lemons. He thought of vinegar. His spit spurted and he had extra juice at the end of the swallow. A mouthful of spit swallowed slowly was almost like drinking soup. Hot soup with potatoes mashed into it. He felt his stomach contract and willed it to stop aching."
It's been 75 years since the great depression of the 1930s, presumably the last time Americans felt severe deprivation. Certainly there are food insecure families in America today, evidenced by the large number of children eating free and reduced-price school lunches. However, I wonder if the lost of deep appreciation for sustenance by the population as a whole is a contributing factor to the obesity epidemic. How much more slowly would we eat if we knew that supply was limited? If we slowed down and really tasted our food, would the preservative-laced breads and inhumanly-raised meats still taste good to us?
Although many factors played a role in getting us where we are today, the weight of the nation, I believe that slowing down and taking the time to appreciate the food we eat may be one way to help us get out of it.
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