Presumably from the same genius researchers who brought us the startling news that Fettucine Alfredo may not be as healthy as a nice baked fish comes this latest study: Chinese restaurant food is sure to cause your imminent demise! Shocking, I know, but General Tso's chicken--heavily breaded chunks of deep fried chicken parts, if I'm not mistaken--"is loaded with about 40 percent more sodium and more than half the calories an average adult needs for an entire day." And here I thought that deep fried food was the answer to all our nutritional prayers.
Thank heavens these researchers are around to remind me that the concept of moderation is still completely absent in America. Do you think that French people are hastily putting away their chopsticks after reading this? No way. Because they understand what we seem to be incapable of grasping: It is possible to be healthy while still enjoying quote-unquote unhealthy food, as long as you're not having it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Here in America, we'll deny ourselves all that quote-unquote unhealthy food for just as long as we can "be good"--conflating morality with restriction of "bad" food--and once we crack, well, watch out. We won't just go and have the Kung Pao and eat a sensible portion and take some home for lunch tomorrow, listening to our bodies for satiety signals. Nope, we're gonna eat that whole giant restaurant platter AND we'll have it with egg rolls, soup, and probably sticky buns at the end. We'll most likely feel stressed and guilty while we eat the whole thing--especially if it's a bunch of women eating together--and we won't really savor it at all.
And then, when the plates have been cleared, we'll wonder why we feel vaguely sick.
Here's how I see the psychology on this: The binging comes directly from this ridiculous notion of "good" and "bad" food and "good" eating. When we devour the Kung Pao, it's like there's no choice: We have to eat it all...don't you see? Because tomorrow we will be "good" again, and who knows when the next time is that Kung Pao will be allowed? Better to gulp it all down now before we come to our senses. Today's already shot; tomorrow we will eat only one lettuce leaf and a diet coke to make up for it, right up until the point in the day when our natural hunger cues become so strong as to make us half crazed and we eat the whole pint of Ben and Jerry's in our freezer.
It makes me crazy, even without the lettuce leaf. How much better would it be for all of us to slow down for half a second, listen to our bodies, and react accordingly? Hmmm...my body this morning says that a banana sounds really good. I could ignore that, but maybe there's a reason I'm craving that banana. Maybe I need potassium. I'm not saying that we should all eat Krispy Cremes and Big Macs, but if you do have one of those, it's not the end of the world. But note how you feel afterwards. When we traveled to California last year, we stopped for fast food several times. It tasted OK while we were eating it, but I felt like crap within a half hour. That's not what I want from my food. That doesn't make all fast food BAD, it just means that I don't like how my body reacts to it. Therefore, I don't really eat at McDonald's if I can help it. If I do get some oddball craving for it, I respond accordingly. Usually it only takes once every six months to remind me why I don't like it.
I'm drifting here, but the main point for me is this: If I decided today that I was never going to Burger King again because it was bad and unhealthy and making me fat, by this afternoon I would be driving the Bozeman Pass to get a Whopper. It's human nature. We like to rebel. If I recognize that I can have a Whopper whenever I damn well please, it's not all that attractive.
All these studies do, in my opinion, is make certain foods into the proverbial forbidden fruit. Should we all have knowledge about the nutritional content of what we're eating? Sure. But I'll tell you this, I'm a helluva lot more concerned with all the undeclared chemicals, pesticides, and Frankenfoods going into the stuff we eat every day than I'm ever going to be about a plate of Mongolian Beef. That it takes me an extra half an hour at the grocery store and a price premium of at least 10 percent to avoid high fructose corn syrup--and a far higher premium if I want to buy organic--is a problem. That most of us eat at least one meal a day at our desks in the office is a problem. That few of us have the built-in leisure time to allow for even a nightly walk is a problem. That kids get shorter and shorter recesses is a problem.
Chinese food is not the problem.