The A Word

More on Potlucks and Food Addiction

By John Taylor; 2007 January 16

A reader responds to a recent essay called, "Are Potlucks Un-Baha'i?," by saying that I was unfair when I accused those without a weight problem of being unsympathetic for those who do. This, I am told, is not the case. Since those who have problems with their weight all say that they are addicted, they can surely avail themselves of an organization called Overeater's Anonymous. Plus, potlucks should not be avoided in a community just because some may feel that they are insulting contributors by not partaking in their contribution. We could have more moderate potlucks by assigning only a few to contribute rather than all. I have summarized in terse language the major points of a long, polite and lovingly worded letter. Let me address them one by one.

First of all, although others say they are addicted to food, I myself avoid the "A" word. I think we are all avid for more than is good for us and, as you say, thin people are thin because they put a lot of work into keeping it that way, they check their scales daily, they restrain impulses and control their intake, etc. This is true not just for us but for animals, wild and domestic.

Pet owners have the same responsibility that meeting planners do not to encourage overindulgence by planning for failure. I know of one dog owner who rigged up a perpetually refilling dog dish. When the dog drank, a sensor was activated to fill it to the brim again. This gadget fooled the silly thing into thinking it had not drunk enough. It drank and drank until it keeled over and died. Does that make the dog a water addict? No, it makes it the victim of a clever but ignorant caretaker. Pet owners who leave a full cat dish out find after a time that, surprise, surprise! They have a fat cat.

Veterinarians strongly advise the pet owner never to do that, always to feed the animal at regular mealtimes, once or twice a day, and to leave it at that. That way, keeping the cat's weight down is not a problem. We have a fat cat, Malley, for the same reason that I am fat, food is left out constantly. It started when it was not fed regularly (i.e., Marie forgot to feed it at night) and it woke us all up in the wee hours of the morning. The solution was the perpetual, always-full cat dish. The worst of it is that it still does not work. Malley squawks every night to be let out, or it wakes us up to be reminded that its dish is already full. Do not ask me why the blighter does that, my only explanation is either the forgetfulness of old age (it is not that old, though) or just outright, sadistic orneriness.

One fact that is not new but I have re-learned well from my little studies over the past year or two on diet is that hungry as I am in the evening, I am much worse when I do not eat correctly during the day. If I have not ingested lots of high bulk, low calorie foods (like the ingredients of my twice daily gazpacho soup, celery, tomatoes, green peppers, cucumbers, etc.) then I become absolutely ravenous. I inhale everything at a potluck. Pity me if there is a feast during the brief times when I have run out of gazpacho and have not yet had time to whip up a new batch. Now that people are brainwashed to eat junk instead of this basic foundation, they all imagine that they are food addicts. I do not believe a word of it. We just are not getting our staples.

As for potluck as an institution, my point was that the Writings dictate that -- for Feasts at least -- there should be a host, and that that host should serve guests personally, with his or her own hands. True, they do not explicitly forbid potlucks at other meetings, but to me the implication is clear that we should avoid them if at all possible. If we want to be faithful, if we believe the Writings are infallible guidance, why is there a problem obeying? The spirit of the divine Law for the feast is that there be a relationship of hospitality set up, and that one serve all. Even when guests are such abstainers that they can only drink water, they are still to be served personally by a real, flesh and blood human being.

Another reason to do this is that avoiding potlucks would distinguish ourselves from the materialist society around us, which is always pushing us to eat more, more, more. A host offers more than more food, he or she can offer warmth, kindness, human affection, all the things that advertisements assure us we get out of buying. If you doubt the power of the media's barrages of propaganda, check out the film "Supersize Me," or the same fellow's book, from which I include a brief selection below. It is taken more or less randomly (it is where I happened to be reading when I got this email) and it addresses some of the concerns mentioned.

Morgan Spurlock, Don't Eat This Book, Fast Food and the Supersizing of America, G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 2005, pp. 23-4

"We are not only eating more food, we are eating more food that is bad for us, that doesn't satisfy us and that makes us hungry for more soon after. Fast food is terrible for you. It shouldn't even be called "food." It should be called more like what it is: a highly efficient delivery system for fats, carbohydrates, sugars and other bad things. Most of those extra calories we're putting on come in the form of carbohydrates. Especially fries. The average American now wolfs down 30 pounds of French fries annually-up from only 3.5 pounds in 1960. And don't forget sodas. Soft-drink consumption in the United States increased 135 percent between about 1977 and 2001. It's highest, not surprisingly, among kids:  American kids now drink twice as much soda as they did twenty-five years ago."

"These (fast food) joints have influenced us to eat more at home, too. A recent study showed that the average American dinner at home has also been super-sized over the last twenty years. Portion sizes have increased dramatically at home. They've also increased in the snacks we munch on, often when we're not even thinking about it. Now we don't just go through half a bag of the Cheez Doodles while watching Monday Night Football, we wolf down the whole bag."

"Have we all become compulsive eaters? Are we all gluttons? Are we actually, physically hungrier than we used to be? Or will we simply eat more if you put it in front of us, whether we're really hungry or not?

"A study done at Penn State suggests the latter. Volunteers were served a series of lunches that kept increasing in size and "as portions increased, all participants ate increasingly larger amounts," no matter how hungry they were. A University of Illinois study found that if you hand the average person a one-pound bag of M&Ms, he'll eat 80 pieces; hand him a two-pound bag, and he'll eat 112 in the same period of time.

"If you put it there, we will eat it. Just keep your hands away from our mouths.

"John Robbins, author of Diet for a New America and The Food Revolution, offers a wise, and I think true, explanation. "The quality of food that we're eating is degrading so rapidly," he told me, "We are eating more of it, because it's advertised so massively and it's so convenient .... So we're always wanting to eat more and more and more, because there's something inside us that's saying we're not getting what we need and want .... We lose touch with that inner compass by which we can sense what's good for us. Instead, we give up control over what we eat to the corporations and the fast-food companies."

"The evidence is clear, America. We don't really need to eat more. We're not really hungrier than we were thirty years ago, and God knows we're not more physically active. No, friends, we've been trained to eat more. Conditioned to do it. Have you seen that commercial where the pizza guy rings the doorbell and the guys in the house go running like Pavlov's dogs, literally salivating and slobbering all over themselves? It was played for laughs, but I saw that commercial and thought, "What ... is funny about that?" That's what we've become -- lab rats for the junk-food industry!