Food as an Important Element of My Life - Essay Example

?Running Head: Food Autobiography Food Autobiography [Institute’s Food Autobiography Food is the fuel for body but for numerouspeople it is much more than that. People for whom food is more than just a body fuel belong to the group “live to eat” rather than to the group that just “eat to live”. Food like music is an aspect of human life that easily describes all about a person’s personality. An individual’s taste in food and his eating habits illustrates about different aspects of the individual personality like his mood, his temper, his attitude towards change, his attitude towards experimenting something new in life and much more. This deep connection of an individual’s psychology and his food and eating habits is evidence enough that an individual food and the manner of its intake defines a person to a very large extent. Good food had always been a source of divine happiness for me. I personally believe that a good cooked meal can solve half of my problems especially sweet dishes. However, just because I love food does not mean I can have food just for the need of having it. I am a very fussy person when it comes to food, the first fuss I remember creating was not having banana and oatmeal porridge for breakfast as they make me feel puckish. This is because from childhood to today I had never been a breakfast person. My tantrum regarding the taste of food are still present probably because my mother is a really good cook, good enough for my entire extended family to love almost all of her dishes. Her high caliber cooking has developed my culinary taste to a high standard. I have always been very partial towards sweets especially chocolate and sweet dishes involving chocolate. This I believe is a genetic thing passed on to me from my father however; I am two steps ahead then him in it. I try to justify my always-present craving for chocolate with the need for caffeine intake as I am not much of a tea, coffee or carbonated drink user. Therefore, I argue that chocolate satisfies the caffeine craving of my body and thus I need chocolate more than anyone else in my family who are heavy tea/coffee drinkers. I love sweet n chocolate so much that any sweet dish cooking on any culinary channel or any tempting chocolate add gives me the feeling as I am actually enjoying that dish or cooking. I do not know why is that but I know that sweet dishes and chocolate not only appeal to my senses but also attract me like a magnet, I feel as if they are calling out to me saying “come, I am only yours for the taking”. However, even this attraction cannot get pass my usual fussy and peculiar self of enjoying good quality food. I will never eat a sweet dish that does not taste good and or have a high amount of sugar in it just for the sake of eating it, as it is a sweet dish. It is also the case with chocolate. I enjoy my food and consider it as one of the pleasures of life so any food item, which fails to provide me with pleasure of eating it, is a big no in my diary as I eat to enjoy my food and not just to fill my body with it. I believe that this fussy and peculiar side of me has helped me not to become a slave of food and have kept my attitude towards food in general and my favorite food item in specific to a very balanced level. Besides my parents the major influence on my taste and like towards food is from my aunt’s family. As we, both families lived in the same neighborhood I spent almost half of my childhood at my aunt’s place. There food was inspired from my uncle’s south Asian background. From their place, I developed the taste for spices, vegetable curries, pickles, and chutneys. Regular dinner and lunches at their home not only broadened my horizon for different taste but also helped in developing a varied list of likes n dislikes when it comes to food. It is only due to the experience gained at their place that today, I enjoy raw green chilies with my curries. However, what my family and friends have failed in is to develop my taste in seafood. I cannot have any kind of seafood besides fried finger fish, lobsters, crabs, prawn, oysters etc give me creeps, and I have refused to try them until now and do not plan to experience it in future either. The above details give a clear idea of my taste, likes and dislikes, my approach and outlook towards food and my emotional attachment with food but what about the aspect which shows the effect of food intake i.e. the physical aspect. Being a chubby child is fine but being a chubby teenager is almost a crime. Sarcastic remarks of individuals around, peer pressure are enough to tumble anyone’s self-confidence, and that is what hit me during my mid-teens. The thing i.e. food which use to give me pleasure and enjoyment started making me feel guilty for consuming it. I started condemning myself for eating and given importance to food. I started blaming my appetite and fondness towards food as the reason for me not being perfect. I started refusing food and exercising and sometimes use to missing lunch for days. I use to eat nothing from breakfast to dinner and this started affecting my health. After some months, I started suffering from immense indigestion and was unable to digest even a very light meal. The doctor diagnosed me with mild ulcer problem and that made me realize what I was doing to myself. I was afraid that I might be a victim of any of any eating disorder, thus I started searching about eating disorders in details. Though my symptoms were quiet mixed with bulimia and anorexia as I was refusing and avoiding eating, I was having body image issues and saw myself as overweight but unlike anorexic patients, I was not extremely thin (American Psychological Association, 2011). I felt guilty for eating but I was not consuming excessive food unlike bulimia patients (American Psychological Association, 2011). I was unable to place myself in any particular category, further search and discussion with people made me realize that my action were logical reaction due to low self-esteem because of being a bit overweight and had nothing to do with anorexia or bulimia. There are various other eating disorders other than bulimia or anorexia like binge eating disorder, night eating syndrome, anorexia athletica, orthorexia etc (Callie, 2009). Not having a size zero figure I do wish to lose weight and so intend to eat healthy for it and perform exercises to lose stored calories but all within normal range and don’t border over any extreme so as to become a patient of any eating disorder. Food is an important element of my life; I enjoy it and take pleasure out of cooking and eating good quality food but with care to my physical health. I cherish food and my body as well as I believes these both to be God’s gift to human so we are required to respect both without letting the other be affected. References American Psychological Association. (2011). Eating Disorders. American Psychological Association. Retrieved on March 22, 2013: http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/eating.aspx Callie. (2009). 10 Terrible Eating Related Disorders. Listverse. Retrieved on March 22, 2013: http://listverse.com/2009/03/14/10-terrible-eating-related-disorders/ Read More