Right now feasting seems to be the last thing I’m interested in. Most days I can’t find many things that I want to eat. I have very little appetite, until I suddenly realize I feel weak from hunger. Then I scarf down food so I feel better, but never really enjoying what I’m eating. This worries me, like this must mean I’m losing savor for life as well as food. But maybe there’s something more interesting going on.
When I was kid I was very skinny, and had to be cajoled into eating dinner most nights. I remember this feeling very much of being slightly sickened by the food being offered (though really nothing was wrong with the food: chicken, hamburgers, rice, pasta, pizza, various veggies). I just didn’t feel much interest in eating this kind of stuff.
What I really loved was candy, and I plotted to get all the time, like hoarding allowance to splurge on a feast of Sweetarts, Sugar Daddies, Lik-M-Sticks, Spree and Nerds. I craved pure sugary things, not so much fatty chocolate things like peanut butter cups or Snickers. I carefully chose candy that would last the longest: stuff to suck on or dissolve slowly in my mouth. At the time I thought I just looked fruity, tart things but now I realize it was probably because whenever I ate candy really quickly, like a handful of candy corn, I’d feel sick right away.
The other thing I hated about mealtimes was how boring it was to sit around and eat food. I’d often pretend not to hear my mother calling me for dinner, since what I was reading, watching or playing was more enjoyable than staring at a plate of food that didn’t seem that tasty.
At some point things changed. When I hit my teens I got more open to eating different types of food I previously hated, like olives and mushrooms. Things started tasting better, I’d actually crave ‘real food’, like ramen or mashed potatoes. But then interestingly, for the first time in my life I started to understand that eating as much as you like of something would make you get fat. Starting to like food and wanting to eat more didn’t feel like a win. I missed being a kid who had better things to do than eat pizza.
For decades I thought of myself as a foodie. I loved all that fancy cheese from Whole Foods, loved eating exotic meals at restaurants, tried all sorts of international delicacies like fried frogs and jellyfish in China, puffin and rotten shark in Iceland, fricasseed crickets and baked emu. I’d spend a lot of time and money getting food I loved.
But in the last year or so, it’s getting harder to enjoy the food I used to be so passionate about. Sushi tastes blah or wrong. Mac and cheese gets boring after a few bites, everything tastes less yummy that it used to be. It’s a lot easier to skip meals, something I couldn’t imagine doing (after all, who forgets to eat?) Not so much because I forget to because my mental inventory of my pantry and fridge fails to interest me and when I spend a few minutes trying to see when I’m in the mood for ( a few spoonfuls of pasta, some cheese, leftover stew) I end up putting off lunch until I’m really craving something. Which does happen.
As a neuroscientist, I want to suspect my dopamine receptors have becomes less responsive to food, and maybe that’s what was going on when I was kid. I still enjoy things, but not food as much. I have to watch my weight. I keep thinking I should do something about this sad state of affairs yet maybe this isn’t sad. Maybe it’s a way back to being a carefree kid, who had better things to do.
— siobhan
When I was kid I was very skinny, and had to be cajoled into eating dinner most nights. I remember this feeling very much of being slightly sickened by the food being offered (though really nothing was wrong with the food: chicken, hamburgers, rice, pasta, pizza, various veggies). I just didn’t feel much interest in eating this kind of stuff.
What I really loved was candy, and I plotted to get all the time, like hoarding allowance to splurge on a feast of Sweetarts, Sugar Daddies, Lik-M-Sticks, Spree and Nerds. I craved pure sugary things, not so much fatty chocolate things like peanut butter cups or Snickers. I carefully chose candy that would last the longest: stuff to suck on or dissolve slowly in my mouth. At the time I thought I just looked fruity, tart things but now I realize it was probably because whenever I ate candy really quickly, like a handful of candy corn, I’d feel sick right away.
The other thing I hated about mealtimes was how boring it was to sit around and eat food. I’d often pretend not to hear my mother calling me for dinner, since what I was reading, watching or playing was more enjoyable than staring at a plate of food that didn’t seem that tasty.
At some point things changed. When I hit my teens I got more open to eating different types of food I previously hated, like olives and mushrooms. Things started tasting better, I’d actually crave ‘real food’, like ramen or mashed potatoes. But then interestingly, for the first time in my life I started to understand that eating as much as you like of something would make you get fat. Starting to like food and wanting to eat more didn’t feel like a win. I missed being a kid who had better things to do than eat pizza.
For decades I thought of myself as a foodie. I loved all that fancy cheese from Whole Foods, loved eating exotic meals at restaurants, tried all sorts of international delicacies like fried frogs and jellyfish in China, puffin and rotten shark in Iceland, fricasseed crickets and baked emu. I’d spend a lot of time and money getting food I loved.
But in the last year or so, it’s getting harder to enjoy the food I used to be so passionate about. Sushi tastes blah or wrong. Mac and cheese gets boring after a few bites, everything tastes less yummy that it used to be. It’s a lot easier to skip meals, something I couldn’t imagine doing (after all, who forgets to eat?) Not so much because I forget to because my mental inventory of my pantry and fridge fails to interest me and when I spend a few minutes trying to see when I’m in the mood for ( a few spoonfuls of pasta, some cheese, leftover stew) I end up putting off lunch until I’m really craving something. Which does happen.
As a neuroscientist, I want to suspect my dopamine receptors have becomes less responsive to food, and maybe that’s what was going on when I was kid. I still enjoy things, but not food as much. I have to watch my weight. I keep thinking I should do something about this sad state of affairs yet maybe this isn’t sad. Maybe it’s a way back to being a carefree kid, who had better things to do.
— siobhan
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