Overeating, Sugar, Salt, Fat and Hyper-taste

So following on from the previous post, we know that the conventional dietary advice does not work for some of us, and judging by the bodies out and about, not for many of us.

There is the debate of the naturally lean but we will save that for another day.

I have been reading a book called "The End of Overeating" by David Kessler.  Amazon.com  Book Depository UK. This is a fascinating book, that exposes how the food industry manipulate food in order to make it hyper-palatable. They do this by manipulating the sugar, fat and salt content in order to make our taste buds want more and more and more of it. To the point we are actually eating ourself to death.

One point neither David Kessler or anyone he talks to seems to notice is that all this fat, sugar and salt is invariably carried on one grain or another, normally wheat. To us low carb people that is a huge point missed. The assumption throughout the book seems to be that the carrier is largely irrelevant.

Other than this the book is excellent, and as well as explaining how the food we eat has changed and how this affects us on a day to day basis, it ends with some practical tips about how to combat the problem.

The simplest way I have found to address overeating however, is mindfulness.

It is very easy to overeat whilst sitting in front of the computer or the television, and even when out with friends. That bread just slips down without being noticed whilst you wait for your main course to be cooked. And my biggest problem was standing in front of the open fridge door, just having a little taste....

Mindful eating is just that. You eat mindully. You set the table, prepare the food with love and care, and then sit down to eat it. You notice how it smells, how it looks on the plate. The texture as you cut it with your knife, the taste as it enters your mouth. You chew slowly savouring the taste, and you do not collect another forkful until you have finished with the food already in your mouth.

You only have to do this once, to realise just how mindlessly we often eat! It also takes a long time to eat anything! I tend to practice mindful eating once or twice a week to remind me how to eat slowly and to savour my food. I have also made a rule that all food must be consumed whilst sitting at a table. This cut out mindless snacks in an instant! It is hard to not notice that piece of chocolate slip down if you have to fetch a plate and sit at the table to eat it!

Do we eat too much? Or just too much of the wrong food? I honestly don't know, but for me, mindful eating has helped enormously. 'The End of Overeating' is a fascinating read and I wholly recommend it, but it is not terribly relevant to low carb people. All that sugar and all those grains are out of our diet anyway. However it might provide fascinating insight into how we got fat in the first place.