How Many Times Do You Chew?

How many times do you chew your food before you swallow? This is a quiz! So leave a comment and let me know.

Chewing has never been my prime interest in “dining.” The object has been to get the food in the mouth and down the gullet as fast as possible, because somehow there was a belief growing up that if I didn’t eat it first someone else would get it and the goal was to eat something as fast and as much as I could so that someone else didn’t eat that last piece of pie or that last scoop of sherbet. However, since my lap-band I have discovered the new world of chewing. I chew approximately 28 times a bite. I have to chew it a lot because if I don’t, it will come back to haunt me! So when I am thinking—and that is the prime directive—I actually have to be thinking about my food, not mindlessly shoveling it in—about my eating and actually concentrating on what is the best thing I can do, it boils down to chewing. If I masticate something until it is basically liquid, it will flow nicely through my alimentary canal. However, if I forget about eating and just revert back to “the get it before it’s gone” mentality, then my lapband lets me know in its own charming way, that I made a BIG mistake! That “wake-up call” has really helped. It hasn’t lessened my desire to eat everything, but it has forced me to actually think about what I really, really, really want to eat.

In talking to my friend, Margy Rockenbeck, at the pool she told me about a book by Leonard Pearson, The Psychologist's Eat-Anything Diet, in which her friend, Dr. Pearson, who is a thin person, made a study of how people eat and the difference between thin and fat eaters. One of the things Margy said was, “Thin people are pretty discriminatory about their eating.” They can discriminate between their body asking for water or food, for sleep or exercise, between something sweet or something sour. They actually listen and can translate their bodies’ internal messages. Meaning that when their body says, “I want ice cream! Their bodies actually say, “I want Haagen Dazs’ amaretto almond crunch.” They are better able to understand and translate what their bodies are actually saying. Whereas I am a person where food goes good with anything. I mean, “Am I tired?” I should eat something so that I’ll be energized. “I’m sad.” Hmm, a subway should answer that problem. “I’m thirsty.” I know a good cheesecake that has raspberry drizzle on the top. Food is the be-all and I Ching of any question. Whereas Tom Hanks in You’ve Got Mail thinksThe Godfather has that spot, I am conditioned to believe that any problem or celebration goes better with food. Not just a discriminating haute cuisine, but a flat-out, fun-filled smorgasboard of delights! The more the merrier.

So yesterday as I was trying to “chug-a-lug” a shrimp salad, I was telling my friend, Elaine, the petite thin woman across the table, that it takes me forever to eat; I have to chew everything 28 times (like I wanted sympathy or something and I wanted her to say, “Oh you poor thing having to masticate for that long, it must be a terrible burden!) Instead she said, “Only 28 times! I chew my food 100 times a bite!” “Really!” I responded! “Yes, I was always the last one out to recess and eventually I just gave up finishing my food.” Now that is the difference between a fat and thin mentality. A fat person would NEVER leave his or her plate partially clad—that plate better be licked clean and totally naked! But Elaine just got up and left the food and went outside to play with her friends. Rob would think that was the better answer to “cafeteria food” but then he is thin whereas I paid “good money” (I think it was 35 cents) for that school lunch and I better eat every last bite. Rashid was sitting on the other side of Elaine and said, “I had to gobble the food down; I didn’t want to miss it. I eat fast.” It is important to know that although Rashid is thin, she is also from India where my mother was always encouraging me to think of the poor starving children in India and somehow my cleaning my plate would give Rashid more food—never figured that out! But I did clean my plate. So there we sat as Elaine chewed her food and told stories of wonder how anyone could eat a piece of steak in 4 or 5 bites. And I’m thinking, “Just a piece of steak, the whole 12 oz. steak could be inhaled in 4 to 5 bites!” So I end where I began—how many times do you chew your food?