Trying to understand why I stuff myself at Flour Bakery
Last time I posted about Boston, it was about the lobster roll at Neptune Oyster. Even after stuffing my stomach full of food, it was still a good idea to get even more food. Still full? Why wait? That's been my motto thus far in life. Digestion in inevitable, so even if I expand my stomach, digestion will happen at a later point anyway. Thus, keep eating. From the lobster shack, Steph and I ended up at a bakery. Because the logical thing when you're already full is to pump yourself full of flour and sugar. Luckily, Flour Bakery was just the place for that.
I had a bread pudding. In hindsight, this was not a great idea. Why? Because bread pudding has this wonderful habit of expanding in your stomach. Normally this is acceptable, if not desired. However, when you want to savor as much of your dessert as possible... well, I was tackled by this bread pudding. Would love to eat it again on a normal stomach, but it was too tough of a challenge to finish.
Steph had a lemon cake thing. Forgive me for lacking details. All the blood in my body was rushing to the stomach region to facilitate digestion. The ability to take notes went out the window. This was also an agreeable dessert. The citrus tang was more refreshing compared to the dense bread pudding.
Anyway, so these days I feel like food blogging is dominating my life. That's good and bad, right? On one hand, a good deal of delicious food goes down my mouth. Yum. On the other hand, I eat even when there's plenty of food in my stomach. This falls under the category of white people problems. (aside: It's not even that crazy that there's a video on white people problems, but a recent search brought over 56 million search results. SRSLY?!?)
Subconsciously it probably stems from this idea that in a developed nation, you can eat anytime. You can eat 24-hours a day, and hunger doesn't have to be your guide. There's a great blog entry on the Freakonomics blog by James McWilliams, a professor at Texas State University. The whole thing is worth a read, but towards the end he says:
When it comes to food, I would venture to say that we’re all irrational. No matter what the nature of our diet, there’s always something to it that, on some level, from some perspective, doesn’t make sense, even to ourselves. I suspect that this is why we’re so wildly passionate about our food choices
Here I am, eating food everyday, to excess and having no idea why this takes place. It's quite one thing to just share pictures of what I eat... which I do here in blog form and also with mobile phone pictures. But the question of 'why' is still present. My days are deeply entrenched in routines. Breakfast before work. Lunch during my break. Dinner around the time when primetime television begins. Maybe a cookie or an eclair in the middle. Do I even wait until I need food?
It is arrogant to say this but it is the truth. More often I eat because of desire instead of need. Professor McWilliams is right. There's no rational reason and there's no logical explanation. It's sad to think that perhaps deep down, I eat almost out of a misguided feeling of entitlement. Oh, there's a new pizza place that opened up recently? I MUST HAVE IT (and fast, so I can blog about it!)
Lately I've been thinking it's a good idea to lose some weight, but first I need a better understanding of why I eat. The crazy thing is that even if I come up with a half-assed reason to please myself, sooner or later that reason might go out the window if pies become the next big thing or whatever. Sooner or later, the logical conclusion of useless soul-searching is that maybe I'm a douchebag, and that's why I eat.
Flour Bakery and Cafe
12 Farnsworth St.
Boston, MA 2210
617-338-4333
(I invite you to follow me on Twitter so you can get more of my non-sense in another medium.)
Flour is the best. Everytime I visit Boston, it's a must visit. Especially now that their Cambridge location is open :)
Meaghin
December 7, 2010 2:34 pm
@Meaghin,
Flour Bakery definitely seems like a popular place in Beantown. I'll probably revisit next time I'm in Boston. I'll be sure to look out for the one in Cambridge!
Danny
December 8, 2010 3:26 pm