But there is another layer of food attachment that had nothing to do with the emotional issues that I faced. And this attachment affects everyone. I remember in the movie So I Married an Axe Murderer, when the dad started ripping into Colonel Sanders.
Stuart Mackenzie: Oh, I hated the Colonel with is wee beady eyes, and that smug look on his face. "Oh, you're gonna buy my chicken! Ohhhhh!"We all laughed at that scene - and the concept of a restauranteur slipping an addictive chemical into their food is hilarious. However, it is actually the truth. Many of the foods we consume have a whole cocktail of chemicals in them - things that our taste buds become so accustomed to that when we don't have them, we actually think the food doesn't taste good. This can be the ridonkulous amount of sugar crammed into a ton of foods. It can be the caffeine that is most beverages. There is also the artificial sweeteners, which are so sweet they actually make us crave sugar. Perhaps the biggest addictive chemical, though, is salt.
Charlie Mackenzie: Dad, how can you hate "The Colonel"?
Stuart Mackenzie: Because he puts an addictive chemical in his chicken that makes ya crave it fortnightly!
I have noticed this over the last couple of months. Salt has been used for millennia to flavor and preserve food. It was how you got things to last past a few days. However, with the massive reliance on prepackaged and fast food, companies have taken this to an extreme. They have to make food that will last on a shelf or in a freezer or in a drive thru, so they dump a ton of salt - or similar chemicals - into the food. Salt is a very powerful taste - it doesn't take much to overwhelm something. It is very useful to highlight other flavors and bring out the true nature of some foods. (Example: Chocolate Chip Cookies. Salt plus chocolate makes chocolate better. It's true. Toll House are awesome because of the salt.) However, it very easily can become too strong.
We have numbed our tongues for so long that we don't even realize it any more. Things are so sweet now that we don't even realize what sweet is. We know what sickeningly sweet is, and kind of accept that as sweet. The same thing goes for salty. We take in so much salt that we think things are normal - when they actually are loaded with salt. And the weird thing about salt is that it doesn't just make us crave more salt - it also makes us crave more beverages too. This is the reason that bars put out peanuts or pretzels or wasabi peanuts. They are salty and make you want more to drink - to quench that thirst that salt brings. So, you are getting triple hammered. You want more salty foods, due to the thrill your tongue gets from the bold taste. You get numb to salt, so you need more to generate a taste. And then you consume too much to drink to offset the saltiness.
What got me really thinking about this was that today I took Gabers to Zaxby's for lunch. We had been running errands all over the place all day and were hungry. So we went there - I was hoping to find something there easier for me. And I knew he could get chicken and fries easy. They actually had several menu items I could have - or at least doctor them up to where I could have them. I ended up getting some wings and fried pickles. The wings were actually very good - and less offensive than my last try with them. The sauce was still heavy, but it was a different style. And the fried pickles were very good, but a little more greasy and breaded than the ones I had last week. Gabe got a couple of tenders and some fries. He was just picking at the chicken strips. I kind of wondered if they were too spicy, so I took a bite of one. The breading was actually kind of thin, and the chicken part was good. A couple of minutes later, I took a bite of the other one - since Gabe wasn't eating them. And then I stopped myself.
I was having this desire to eat the strips. I even began justifying in my head how that wouldn't be too bad, since they weren't heavily breaded or anything. I'm not addicted to chicken strips. I love chicken, but that is a good thing. But this was different than enjoying the food. I felt like I HAD to have it. There was this compulsion to eat the strips. I haven't had that feeling for weeks. And I didn't like it. I tried to identify what it was that was triggering that reaction. My mouth felt weird. And then I realized that it that the chicken was very salty. The blast of grease and chicken and seasoning had originally masked it. But the salty feeling lingered. And it was driving me right back to them.
Salt. That is the secret ingredient. I remember the one time I had KFC's atrocious Tender Grilled Pigeon. The salt in it nearly knocked me over. The other night I had some chili from Wendy's, and it seemed to have more salt in it than meat. I've already recorded my feelings about most fast food chicken - coated in salty bouillon spread. It becomes very frustrating to minimize salt intake. Heather will sometimes get Healthy Choice frozen dinners - they are easy to cook on the fly at school. But they are jammed with sodium. Most places dissolve an entire salt lick in their soups. It is kind of ridiculous.
Last night I made chili. (Yes, again. Don't judge me.) This time, I tweaked my recipe. I split the meat to half ground sirloin and half ground turkey. I added a poblano pepper (definite winner there). And then I made two switches that seemed minor. First, I couldn't find the Chili Base I was using, so I just seasoned it my way with Emeril's Essence and Southwestern Essence and other stuff. Second, I had roasted four cups of Roma tomatoes the other day and used those instead of the canned tomatoes. The chili was completely different. It tasted lighter and fresher. Part of the lightness was the turkey. But the freshness was undeniable. It was due to the pepper, somewhat. But a lot of it was the lack of salt in the tomatoes and seasoning. I had no idea, but the salt was giving my chili a kind of prepackaged taste to it. By reducing the overwhelming salt content, I actually made it taste better on several levels. (I already don't add any salt to offset the sodium in the base, chicken stock, and seasoning. This time, it really changed it.)
The thing about sodium is that it is really a scary thing in our bodies. It isn't like most foods, that can just make us fat or whatever. Salt will severely screw you up. It messes with your fluid levels and the delicate balance in the body. It raises blood pressure. It can make you dehydrated. It can make you retain water and actually gain weight. That's pretty messed up. I know that there have been times when I was driving a lot over a couple of days. I would eat out a lot (tons of sodium) and not drink enough water. By the end, I would feel horrible. I was getting dehydrated and my digestive system wasn't working right. All from salt content!
It is really interesting - and a testimony to how much I have changed - that I even think about this at all. I remember back in years past, I would get angry when my mom would try to reduce our salt levels. My dad's doctor had told him to reduce his intake, due to his blood pressure. He, of course, didn't care. But I would get just as angry as him. Why? Our food started to taste "bland." It wasn't actually bland. It was just that my taste buds were so accustomed to the salt that I hated it when it wasn't there. That was how I used to view things. But, now I really am starting to be concerned about the way that people close to me eat. Jamie Oliver's new show "Food Revolution" on ABC is a good example. It is trying to address the ridiculous eating habits in our country. When I see commercials for it, my first reaction is to get furious that this arrogant punk dares to tell me what to do. (That was my response to stuff like this for years like Supersize Me and Food Inc,) But then I wonder why it bothers me, since I have started to do the same thing for myself. It is hard to shake that mindset. It is so ingrained in our culture and our food choices. But we really have to get more aware of stuff like this. I know I do.
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