Revolutionary Joy of Pleasure in Eating
Like what you eat! It's cool!
*TW: mention of diet, weight loss, and anti-fat bias
I have had the privilege of enjoying many meals both at restaurants and at home. I just had my best BITE of 2023 at Owamni, which is finally open again after an electrical fire earlier in the spring. The bite was the skin of a sweet potato that was made into a chip, with a thick layer of creamy mashed beans, and topped with pickled walleye, a pickled green bean, and some micro greens. I’m not kidding when I say that tears came to my eyes. It was an almost out of body experience I don’t have that often. I wanted to eat it extremely slowly to make it last, so I could nail down every flavor to be able to recreate something even half as good as this dish. With meals at home, the tears of joy often come with a flood of memories alongside a delicious plate of food.
To be Fat while Eating
I love to eat, savoring each texture and flavor, and taking the time to admire the visual plating before diving in. I am a triple Taurus after all, and a good aesthetic composition really does it for me. As a (small) fat woman, it is vulnerable and risky for me to be seen enjoying food in public. Some people expect me to hem and haw over the salad menu, assuming that those are the only acceptable options for women who look like me. There is a lot of judgment about food because culturally we have long believed that the food we eat directly leads to the body we have, and that is just not true. Our body shape and size is mostly genetics.
To be fat, a woman, and a person who luxuriates in the pleasure of eating still seems a little revolutionary. Every time I’m out to eat, I have the added social pressure of whether my choice to order a burger will be judged by strangers in the restaurant and/or by the person I’m eating with. If I don’t know the extent of a friend’s anti-fat bias, I may order a salad just to be safe from diet talk or judgment. If it’s a friend who has not spoken about diets or weight loss or moralizing food as good or bad, I am more likely to feel comfortable eating the thing I truly want.
Sure there are times when I’ll be brave and order whatever I want, knowing that there is a possibility that a comment will be made about themselves or my meal, but I have my little toolbox of responses ready. This is mentally exhausting for something as simple as a basic need, and I would love to say that my joy while I eat is not impacted by other people but it is. There are people I no longer eat meals with who I love deeply because they have not done enough in their own deconstruction of their attitudes toward fat people, and I want to luxuriate in my meals without fear of judgment. It is hard to stand firm in this decision, and can be lonely.
I have worked on my own anti-fat beliefs over the last ten years, and deeply regret certain things I’ve said to people I love and beliefs I held onto for too long. I’ve made so much progress thanks to conversations with my husband, friends, and the Maintenance Phase podcast, and I am boldly happy in the body I have.
It’s Weird to be Loyal to a Diet
Yet, there are people I interact with everyday who are surprised by all that my body can do, and my beliefs I hold about fat bodies. I can see the mental gymnastics after I say that last summer my husband and I walked three miles most mornings, or we only eat a handful of meals a week with meat, and yes, we are still fat. Or I say something that I think is common knowledge like: all diets fail and people are SHOCKED to learn this. The research says that 95% of diets do not work - either people never lose weight or they gain it all back as soon as they stop the diet.
If any other “medical intervention” had a failure rate of that magnitude (i.e. chemo, gallbladder surgery), medical professionals would be looking for another option. Most people jump to give an anecdote of someone who is part of the 5%, or defend Whole30 or Keto, but the reality is that they just don’t work, and frankly it’s weird to be beholden to a diet or the concept of dieting so intensely. Like, why are you clinging to this?
Pleasure and Nutrition
I had heard somewhere (TikTok? An article? I can’t remember) about a study that was done in the 1970s that showed that people absorbed more nutrition out of food if they enjoyed eating it. In researching for this week’s newsletter, I found the study abstract and this article, which I’ll summarize for you below but please feel free to read these on your own. But indeed, nutrient absorption is dependent on enjoyment of what you are eating.
A study done in 1977 (46 years ago!) in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that people absorb more nutrients from food they savored than from food they didn’t like. There were two groups in this study: a group of Thai women and a group of Swedish women. Researchers were interested in iron absorption between the groups depending on what they ate, whether it was a meal they were familiar with or a meal from the other country, keeping the iron levels the same for both dishes.
They were all fed a dish from Southeast Asia, a dish the Thai group would have been familiar with, but the Swedish women probably never encountered before. The Thai women absorbed almost 50% more than the Swedes, which of course leads to better nutrition and benefits to the body overall. The scientists took the same meal and pureed it into a paste, which as you can imagine, is not appetizing. The Thai women ate the mushy meal and absorbed 70% less iron than before. The food was the same, but the women did not enjoy eating it when it was pureed, likely because it was not enjoyable to eat.
Digestion does not start at your mouth, it starts in the brain. The more eager your brain is to eat something, the better it will absorb nutrition because it sends signals to the digestive system to GET READY TO BREAK THIS DOWN ~*GoOd~*! This is why intuitive and joyful eating has been so helpful for me, and my body hasn’t changed that much despite eating what and when I want. The connection between pleasure and digestion is strong!
Additionally, when you’re stressed out in general, you can’t absorb food as well. Your blood goes to your extremities and your vital organs, and away from digestive organs. So if you’re trying to eat and the environment stresses you out, and/or the people around you are stressing you out about what you are eating (looking at you almond moms 👀), you won’t get as much nutrition out of your food.
I hope that you are able to revel in the hedonistic joy of eating this week, and that you can take a moment of pause to thank and appreciate your body’s ability to pull nutrients out of your food.
Things I Like
Your Fat Friend website, specifically the Fat Reading List
This cold noodle salad I’ve made once a week lately
Anything Barbie - I’ve fully consumed the Kool-Aid
Joy Oladokun’s song she wrote last week “where the dude from ‘Stacy’s Mom’ apologizes to Stacy for not realizing how special Stacy was”
Worker solidarity for all the strikes happening right now - don’t cross the picket lines babes and listen to what the specific unions are asking for
May your week be gentle and may you eat well. 🌲🥣