We Have A Devil Of A Time Exorcising Our Food Guilt

Some fascinating summer reading is “The Garden of Eating: Food, Sex and The Hunger for Meaning.” It’s by Jeremy Iggers, a Minneapolis-St. Paul journalist who writes about food and restaurants for the StarTribune. Dan Webster mentioned the book in this space last week, but the book is so insightful it deserves another mention. Igger’s thesis is that because all our old taboos have pretty much disappeared, we have made food the central evil in our lives. We talk about it as if it’s sinful. We sometimes eat in secret. We have tremendous guilt around food. We eat on the run or when we are reading, watching television or driving.

He does offer some interesting solutions. Plant a garden so you see where food comes from. Take the time to cook. “Given the busy lives that so many of us lead, it is hard to find time for this pleasure. But are we really too busy, or are we allowing ourselves to be fragmented needlessly? Making time to cook can be a way of taking control of your life.” Eat as a family, or even communally, as much as possible. Savor your food; eat “mindfully.”

“At the risk of reducing the ancient wisdom of the Orient to just another weight-loss gimmick, it should be noted that when you eat mindfully, pausing to take note of the flavor and the texture of the food, and of the sensations on the tongue, you’re likely to eat more slowly, and to eat less.”

First ladies: Amazing women who have lived in the White House will be the focus of a “Senior Week” session, sponsored by the Community Colleges of Spokane’s seniors program. It begins Monday and will go daily through Friday at the Corbin Senior Activity Center, 827 W. Cleveland Ave. The class is titled: “First Ladies of the White House: A Changing Role.” Cost is $31. For more information, call 533-3393.

Support group: Dr. George Rice and Dr. Raymond Wright, infertility specialists, will be the guest speakers at the next Resolve meeting, July 30, 7 p.m. at Deaconess Health and Education Center, Room 263. Call 622-0589.

Help a child: Spokane County Juvenile Court is looking for volunteers for its Guardian ad Litem Program. Volunteers help neglected or abused children as they work their way through the court system. For more information, call Susan Cairy, 458-2469.

Sparklers: Prevention magazine went in search of men and women who possessed “The Spark.” Those are people who harness positive energy and seem to enjoy better health, happiness and longevity. They surveyed 12,000 people for their secrets and they concluded that the “sparklers” share several common characteristics. They are very optimistic, have a strong belief in a higher power, think of the future rather than the past, think people are good, are very trusting, think they can control their life and their health.

, DataTimes