Monday, April 7th, 2008...6:53 am
Are You In Love with the Taste or the Memory of Your Favorite Food?
I recently had a conversation with someone who made an interesting discovery about his favorite food, pizza. He realized that pizza was tied to a lot of his happy memories. His first bit of freedom was hopping on his bike as a kid and riding by himself down to the pizza shop for a snack. Then as he got older his first job was working in a pizzeria and not only did he get paid for working there, he also got quite a few dates.
Now the question is does he really love the taste of pizza or the memories that pizza brings back for him? Well, it is possible that he experiences both but having a strong association between food and happy events can make that food seem irresistible; like there is an overwhelming craving for that food.
Food/event associations are common – one that many people are familiar with is popcorn and movie theaters. Some people associate these two things so strongly it feels wrong to go to a movie and not eat a big bowl of popcorn.
Associations can work in reverse, we can make associations between certain foods and unpleasant events that we don’t want to repeat. I remember having a nauseating reaction to the smell and sight of Chinese food when I was pregnant. For whatever reason just the thought of Chinese food during the last trimester of my pregnancy made me sick. This negative association was so strong that it took years for me to feel good enough to even enter a Chinese restaurant again.
Take a new look at your relationship with your favorite food, can you tie that food to a specific positive event or can you link it to feeling loved or having fun? This type of positive association can make you feel very drawn to that particular food but once you realize that there is more to your love than just taste you will find that you can choose to have the food or not.
This is how it worked for the guy I was telling you about, he found that he does enjoy eating pizza but it is no longer an irresistible craving. The last pizza he got lasted him for three meals over three days, normally he said, “the pizza would have been gone in one day”.
Do you have a positive association tied to your favorite food? If so, how does it affect you? Share your comments below.
1 Comment
April 7th, 2008 at 8:49 am
I’ve always loved popcorn and would eat it daily, but I especially enjoyed it with a movie and would never watch a movie without my popcorn, preferrably salted and buttered.
But in my 40’s I had to give it up because I started getting diverticulitis every time I indulged, which required a visit to the ER. I’d periodically cheat and eat the popcorn until I realized it could be life threatening to do so.
Knowing that giving it up was a necessity became the motivation to forgo one of my favorite foods. And it was so very difficult initially, especially at the movie theater where you can’t escape the wonderful aroma.
But I finally did get over it out of necessity and the popcorn stronghold no longer exists—I am free of it.
Which shows, I think, that it is a mind over matter issue. Once I made up my mind that I could not and would not eat it ever again, mission accomplished.
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