0087

Many people have many different relationships with food, but mine feels unique. I don’t struggle with portion control or overeating, nor am I in any danger of anorexia or starvation. Some people are very picky eater, but luckily I am not one of those either. So what makes my situation different?

Some people have asked me before whether I just don’t enjoy food. I’m just that one guy who eats to live and for no other reason, right? If you were to observe my eating habits then it might be an understandable conclusion. I will often exert the minimum possible effort required to get a meal, and eat it based mainly to get me to the next meal. It might be a protein bar hastily grabbed from the snack pile at work, a smoothie made more to use old old fruits and veggies rather than taste, or sometimes eating only snacks instead of a full meal to save time.

Oh, and if this all sounds bad you should have seen me in university. All of the above still applied, plus the added pressure of saving money because I was poorer and time because I was a busy student. I was infamous for purchasing solely based on the price to calorie ratio of various foods, and I had it down to a science. Good times. I still kind of do this sometimes, since I often don’t care enough to discriminate on taste, but less than I used to.

You can also observe it in how I go through the contents of my fridge. I will always prioritize finishing leftovers over making anything new, to a fault (assuming the leftovers are real, nutritious food and not, like, candy). I’d rather have a dinner consisting of half a plate of spaghetti, some old potato curry, with some close to expired chopped vegetables thrown in rather than make something new. Of course doing this requires being a pretty unpicky eater, which luckily I am, but I find it quite baffling that more people don’t do this. I know people who are not too picky, and who proclaim to hate wasting food, and yet they let perfectly good leftovers sit for days and end up throwing them out. Even these past two days I’ve been slowly working on two open bags of two week old caramel popcorn.

Of course I’m sure some of this is cultural, in that there’s an expectation that hot, fresh food be served at every meal otherwise you will look poor, but I digress. It does sometimes seem like it’s a choice between that and wasting food, and I know which one I would choose.

So between not being picky at all, eating minimum effort food, and generally being undiscerning I agree that it may seem like I don’t care about food; that I just eat to live. However, there are other interesting facets about my relationship with food that don’t cleanly fit into this picture.

For one, I’m very price conscious. Like I mentioned, I’ll often optimize relentlessly for calories per dollar, or even resort to eating one of my emergency protein bars which I carry around specifically to avoid having to buy food. However, I also enjoy going out to fine dining and occasionally spend hundreds of dollars on a single meal which I enjoy entirely alone.

I’m a very low effort cook, which is why every breakfast is some random assortment of fruits, milk, and protein powder blended together into a dull paste to passively drink over time. However, I also occasionally put a lot of effort into cooking not only entirely meals from scratch, but also making fresh accompaniments like bread myself. It’s true this is partly because cooking at home is cheaper than restaurant food, but not entirely. I also put time into plating food as well, which some people might call nothing but pointless effort.

So what gives? Here’s one way to look at it. There are various reasons to like or dislike a given food. Taste and nutrition are the main ones, and probably the most important for most people. If you could eat tasty, nutritious food for every meal for the rest of your life then why wouldn’t you?

I think that my perspective on food, while certainly taking those factors into account (nutrition more than taste to be fair), has other priorities as well. These maybe arise from choosing to view food more as an art form than just something to enjoy. Factors like the story behind a piece of food, the message it’s trying to convey, the creativity required to conceive of and eventually create a dish. It’s a perspective on food that’s almost similar to seeing it like a painting rather than something to be consumed.

So that’s why I like cooking at home, despite the negatives. It creates a much closer connection to the food, and imbues it with a much more interesting story. It’s why I don’t really differentiate between eating a protein bar from my stash and much tastier restaurant or fast food; where’s the story/message/creativity there? I think these traits have also translated into being quite a good home cook, when hosting guests. Being able to serve creative food with a story, in my experience, is a hit.

In the cases where I don’t have any particularly interesting food, I will often default to my core programming, which is to optimize for the price to calorie ratio. Why not do so? This may be a more general quality, but I’m really really good at being unbothered. Even if it’s too hot or I’m thirsty or I have a rash I will basically just ignore it and instruct my brain to keep on keeping on. So, for uninteresting food, it’s pretty easy for me to brain to just decide not to care about taste and accept it for what it is.

I’ve never really met anyone who’s has the same peculiarities as me when it comes to food. Personally, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I can accept cheap value food when I need to, but can still enjoy the highest echelons of fine dining when I want. I’ve become a great home cook, while also minimizing food waste and keeping an organized fridge. Maybe sometimes I tend to eat less than I really should, but overall I’m quite happy that I’ve turned out like this.