The Case for Making Food INconvenient

Today I’m sharing another one of my Astoundingly Obvious Observations (AOOs): The more conveniently available food is, the more you’ll (probably) eat. I’ve talked about this idea before, but its truth has been brought home to me even more strongly of late as I’ve kept my intake of sugar under control. Keeping sweet items and other snack foods out of the house means that I can’t just grab a handful of something if the urge hits.

So let’s say that it’s 4:00 in the afternoon and I’m feeling a little low. Wouldn’t it be nice to have something to eat? After all, dinner won’t be for at least two hours, and there’s no need to starve myself–if I’m really hungry. But often it’s not hunger that’s driving the need for a snack–it’s, maybe, well, boredom. I’ve been working on something for a couple of hours and I’m tired of doing whatever it is, even writing a post on this blog! I love, love, love getting my ideas down, but there’s a limit to everything. (The Emperor Claudius, before he became emperor, said that much as he loved writing about history and also about gambling, there was no way he could fill more than six hours a day with that pursuit.) Because America is such a snack-oriented society, the natural impulse when I run low on energy and motivation is to think that I need to eat something. Guess what? There’s not much around this place that I can just grab. The pantry is full of food, but pretty much all of it needs some type of preparation. You can’t snack on raw pasta! There is some dried fruit, but a handful of Craisins doesn’t appeal to me. My snack options boil down to: some roasted, salted, shelled pistachios that I keep in the freezer and some type of whole fruit, usually apples. I don’t really like just biting into an apple (who knows why) so if I eat one I cut it up into slices first. I could also buy some almond butter to have on hand for use with the apple slices, but I just can’t bring myself to spend that much money. Good grief! And I’ve kind of lost my taste for regular peanut butter. (I will say here, just to tell you what a weird kid I was growing up, that since my childhood home also had very little in the way of snack/junk food because of severe budget limitations, I had to get creative if I wanted something outside of mealtimes. You know what I’d eat? Some raw oatmeal with brown sugar. How I came up with this stellar combination is a mystery. The amount of brown sugar was about the same as the amount of oatmeal, by the way.)

Eating some pistachios takes little effort, but they’re pretty satiating and so I don’t eat many at a time. Also, they’re expensive, and I do use them in recipes, so I don’t want to use them up prematurely. Also, they’re frozen. I eat them that way, actually, but they do take a little extra crunching. (Limiting your nut intake to those you have to shell first, as the picture illustrates, is also an option.) Eating an apple takes more time, both in prep and in eating. So a good gauge of whether or not I’m truly hungry is how willing I am to expend some effort to eat something. But if the usual suspects are around (candy, salted nuts sitting out on the counter, chips in the pantry), then I don’t have that natural brake that makes me stop and think, ‘Do I really want to bother?’ I can mindlessly eat a handful, or several handfuls, without paying much attention. When dinnertime arrives I’m not even aware of how much I ate just a couple of hours before, and I’ll eat just as much as I would have without the mid-afternoon snack.

Well, enough of that. Just remember: Nothing stays in Vegas. Everything counts. (Yes, yes, yes, I’ve said that before, too.)