My Eating Disorder

Now that my weight is down to 75 pounds, I’ve decided to finally admit to the world (friends, relatives, associates, observers, etc.) that in fact I DO have an “eating disorder”. It’s called “Food Is My Lowest Priority” syndrome. Over the past 15 years, I’ve also referred to it as the “I Eat to Live; I Do Not Live to Eat” diet, the “Unemployment Weight Loss Program” (aka the Poverty Weight Loss Program), and the “Excuse Me for Being Picky” diet.

Beyond the financial factors that have necessarily caused me to buy less food either as groceries or take-out/delivery for the past 4+ years, there are a couple of larger components of my disorder:

Low Priority/Forgetting To Eat

On any given day, there are dozens of things I’d rather be doing than preparing/eating food, even a snack. As a freelance writer, I need both hands available to type on the keyboard. And I spend several hours a day doing just that – in addition to writing and responding to emails, applying for writing gigs, research, my own and my mother’s bills and business/medical issues. When I’m not on the computer, there is always a list of household chores to do, errands to run, and occasional projects like recycling/restyling my costume jewelry, or other “necessity is the mother of invention” projects. With so much to do and so little time in a day to do it, yes I forget to eat 3+ times a day. However, I DO eat something at least once a day.

Food Idiosyncrasies

I have always been an extremely picky/finicky eater. One of those people who decides I won’t like something without ever tasting it. Lots of food items are on this list. My best anecdote about just one is the “Lobster Incident”. When I was in my mid-20s, my mother finally goaded me enough to try a bite of lobster. We were at a restaurant and she was especially pleased with her lobster tail entrée. The second it was in my mouth and I bit down on it, I started to wretch/gag and had to spit it out. That experience let me know that if I decide I don’t like something – whether I’ve ever tasted it or not - I’m probably right.

In later years I realized I’m kind of a “food purist”. I don’t like to have items on a plate touching each other or running together. I wish all food was served in a separated plate; the kind with compartments like people use at picnics.

I don’t like mixing certain things together under certain conditions. Examples:

No cheese on my meat sandwich! No cheeseburgers; no ham & cheese; no philly cheesesteak, etc. But I’ll eat a meatball sandwich with mozzarella. I won’t eat a ham & cheese sandwich but I love a good ham & cheese omelet. I love sausage and cheese pizza.



I like chili and I love mac & cheese casserole. But I would not touch “chili mac” – chili mixed with macaroni.

I love tuna from a can or package (Chicken of the Sea only) but wouldn’t touch a tuna melt if it was the last/only food on earth and I was starving.

There is a LONG list of foods/items that are on my mental list of “I’d rather chew on a paper napkin than eat [insert name here]”, sometimes known as my “How hungry would I have to be to eat THAT?” list.

Don’t Care Much for Sweets

I am one of the few people on this planet who doesn’t have a large sweet tooth or top-of-mind chocolate craving. I’m good with a small slice of plain cake or fruit pie once every 3-6 months, a couple of Hershey kisses now and then if available. I don’t like icing – on cake or even a Danish roll. Jelly or jam on toast? No thank you! For many years, I wouldn’t even eat store-bought baked goods. I’d been spoiled by a family great aunts (grandmother’s sisters, besides being great people!) who made all baked goods from scratch. The store-bought stuff wasn’t nearly as good. And it always seemed to have WAY too much icing/toppings that I had to scrape off.

Lactose Intolerance

This is something that reared its ugly head about 10 years ago. A consequence of aging, I guess. Just as well, mostly. But I’ve had to cut back on ice cream, milk/milkshakes, real cream, butter and stuff made with it, mayo, anything with high dairy ingredients.

Hate to Cook/Prepare Food

This is probably my biggest issue. If I didn’t have to prepare a snack or a meal every time I wanted to eat something more than snack food out of a bag, I’d eat at least 3 times a day! I’d eat breakfast every morning if the bacon/ham/sausage, eggs, hash browns, or waffles or French toast was ready to eat when I woke up. I’d eat lunch every day if a sandwich was already made and all I had to do was sit down and eat it. I’d eat dinner every night if all I had to do was come to the table and sit down to eat it. Does it sound like I was raised in a restaurant? I wasn’t. My family did not cater to my food whims. Mostly it was “This is what there is. If you don’t like, don’t eat it.” So I didn’t. My mother says that my grandmother/her mother (who lived with us) used to make special meals for me when I turned up my nose at the “family menu fare”. I don’t recall that happening even once. Her idea of a snack for herself was pig’s feet or sardines & crackers. Things that are on my list of “I’d rather eat a paper napkin than ….”

Oddly enough, it’s not that I have an aversion to handling or preparing food. I don’t get freaked out about having to wash chicken parts or pork chops or catfish fillets, then seasoning and flouring them for frying or baking. I don’t mind cutting up onions, celery and pickles, and peeling then crumbling boiled eggs with a fork for potato salad. (I don’t like egg chunks!) I know it’s a necessary evil to get it done just the way I like it. But food prep just takes so much time! Time away from the enjoyment of sitting down to eat it! And the more “elaborate” it is (for number of ingredients, prep and cook time, etc.), the longer it takes. For even a simple ham sandwich, the mayo must be spread precisely and evenly on each slice of bread, the ham slices must be folded evenly to fit on the slice – nothing hanging off the sides, the sandwich must be cross-cut to ensure symmetry of portions – equal-size triangles. Thank goodness I don’t have the need to cut off the crust!

Limited Palate/No Exotic Foods

When I was growing up back in the 70s, exotic food was sausage and cheese pizza or spaghetti and meatballs delivered from the closest Italian fast food joint, or take-out Chinese food, or ribs. I’d tried Mexican food from places like Taco Bell and quickly decided I didn’t like Mexican food. Too much stuff mixed together, in a hard container (corn taco shell) that breaks up as soon as you bite into it.

The choices were nothing like today’s choices of dine-in, take-out, delivery cuisine. While I did learn to branch out a bit to fajitas and skirt steak, Greek chicken, Chinese egg foo young, and chicken alfredo, that’s about it for me. My philosophy is: When I’m hungry and ready to eat, I don’t want “surprise” food that I may or may not like or eat. Also, if I don’t recognize what it is I’m not eating it and I certainly won’t try it. If it’s not appealing to my eyes, there’s no way it will ever reach my mouth! Anything that comes with legs, wings, eyes, fins, arms/tentacles, hooves, a shell, a tail, etc. – No Way!!! But for some reason, I have no problem with “finger foods” like chicken wings and ribs where you almost have to use your fingers to eat it.

Animal organs - gizzards, liver, tongue, brains, chitterlings, etc. - YIKES!!! I don’t care how it’s made, or what sauce/gravy it’s covered or served with. Bring on the paper napkin on a plate! I was forced to eat liver a few times when I was a kid. The only way I could get it down was to cut it into pieces so small that I could swallow them whole, one by one. After 50 years I still remember that awful taste.

Mindful vs. Mindless Eating

I envy people who can eat stuff just because it’s there. No matter what it is – fruit, candy, cake, chips/popcorn/snack food, whatever. If it’s there, they’ll eat it. I need to have a taste for something in particular. If it’s not “there” - ready to eat with no preparation - oh well –there goes that craving. Sometimes, an odd thing happens – if I think about eating something specific and vividly for long enough, at some point I feel like I’ve eaten it.

Cravings

Sometimes, a craving that requires some preparation will take a few weeks to kick in. But even something as simple as popcorn could take a while. Popping the corn in the micro and watching/listening to make sure it doesn’t scorch/burn, melting some butter in a separate dish to pour over it. There’s always some prep involved. Actually, I rarely have strong cravings when I just absolutely HAVE TO have a certain food or snack item. Lucky me!

Absolute Brand Loyalty

This is another picky thing. I grew up eating only certain brands of food items – those the grownups chose and bought for the household. Hellman’s mayo, Oscar Mayer hot dogs, bacon, and lunchmeat, Campbell soup, Chicken of the Sea tuna, etc. Of course, if my mother decided to get a different brand because it was cheaper than these premium brands, I didn’t have much choice but to at least try to eat it. And I found the other/cheaper brand didn’t taste nearly the same or as good. So for many years, I stopped eating these items at home. Instead I’d visit relatives more often because they used the products I liked and was used to. When I grew up and started buying my own groceries, back I went to buying the brands I knew and loved, regardless of cost. It was worth it – especially for someone as picky about their food as I am. For some things, there just is no substitute.

Limited Dining/Eating Opportunities

When I was laid off from my 9-5 job, I really realized how much it affected my eating habits. Specifically how many times in a day I stopped to eat. When I was working 9-5, I stopped for breakfast every morning. And not just some fast food sausage sandwich. I’m talking a 3-egg ham and cheese omelet or a 3-egg ham (no cheese) omelets sandwich or a scrambled egg with sliced ham sandwich on toast with butter. I ate lunch every day. Sometimes just a deli sandwich, or a burger and fries, sometimes a full entree of chicken Alfredo with garlic bread. I hardly ever brought my own lunch from home. The choices were so much more and better from places near the job. And of course, there was going out with co-workers to nearby full-service restaurants. After work, if I wasn’t going out with friends for dinner or didn’t feel like cooking at home, there were several places where I could stop on the way home and get some take-out. If all else failed, there was always delivery of whatever I wanted.

When I started working from home more, and at occasional/temp jobs, the schedule went out the window, along with many of the eating opportunities. Still, at the time, I lived in Downtown Chicago and there were plenty of places to get take-out or fast delivery. There was even a full-service, well-stocked grocery store in my apartment building that always had a huge selection of heat-and-eat entrees and sides. However, that level of availability and convenience disappeared when I moved to Las Vegas in 2011. There are no places within 5 miles to get any food, except the grocery store and a few restaurants that deliver and even they were not within walking distance.

Economics of Eating

It has only been in the past year or so that I truly realized how closely food consumption is related to financial/economic circumstances. Basically: the less money you have at all, the less you have for food (or anything else). When I moved to Las Vegas in 2011, I weighed 105. After 2 years and the limitations I mentioned above, I’d lost 10 pounds (105 to 95 lbs). In April 2014, my writing gig (and income) ended. It took six months to find another paying gig but it only paid half what I’d been making. There went another 10 pounds (95 to 85). In July 2015, my paying client suddenly disappeared. And there went my only income – and another 10 pounds (85 to 75 lbs). I applied for and began receiving welfare/food stamps. Better than nothing. But they don’t cover heat-and-eat foods and entrees from the deli. I can buy all the snack/junk food I want, as much frozen food as I can fit in the freezer, and enough soda pop to stop drinking water and juice altogether. And of course – all the food and fixings to prepare a snack or a meal from scratch. Great, but something I really hate to do. I just want to sit down and eat! But of course, with such little money to go around, dining out/take-out/delivery is a luxury I can’t afford.

Genetics

I am genetically predisposed to being a small-boned, thin person. My father and both his parents were small, thin people. None of us ever had a traditional eating disorder. No history of anorexia, bulimia, or any other eating disorder. Not even one incident or anything close. Me personally – I have never had a weight problem, except putting/keeping it on. I always ate whatever I wanted and as much of it as I wanted. I still do. It’s just that I don’t have as many opportunities to do so, or money to fund those dining adventures anymore.

I Hate Leftovers

Almost nothing tastes good to me as a leftover. No matter what it is or what I (or others) do to it, “It” never tastes as good as when it was “fresh” – off the stove, out of the oven, off the grill, or from the take-out/delivery place it came from. There are very few exceptions to this: potato or tuna salad, and things like spaghetti with meat sauce, chili, beans or soups, stew, things with a high “gravy/sauce” component. While the magical microwave is great for re-heating stuff, it’s just not the same when it comes out of there. And some leftover foods – especially fried – don’t do well at all.

Slow Eater

It doesn’t help that I am a slow eater. I actually chew my food very well; very fine. Want to enjoy every bite while it lasts. But for food that is best enjoyed hot/warm, it means my food gets cold pretty quickly. Then I don’t want it anymore, and it becomes a leftover, or simply waste.

Get Tired of Chewing

Yes, it happens, usually with meats. No matter how tender it is, no matter what food it is, since I like to take a long time to chew, at some point I get tired of chewing.
Are We Clear Now?

My purpose in writing out this lengthy explanation is to clarify that I do not have a known “eating disorder” that has caused my weight loss, especially in the past few years since I moved to Las Vegas in 2011, and in the previous years after I was laid off from my 9-5 job in 2001. I am not intentionally starving myself. I am not nor have I ever been on drugs. I do not have cancer or some other disease that is causing the dramatic weight loss. I am simply a very picky eater with a variety of idiosyncrasies about food.

I know I'm not the only one on this planet who has weird food habits, likes and dislikes. Don't be shy. You're not alone! What's YOUR story? Which of mine can you relate to?