The craving for a shrimp and mayo bun
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
My uncle was visiting my mother today, and for lunch I went out to the fish cart and got a selection of buns with various fishy fillings. At the end of the meal, when everyone was sitting having eaten their fill, there was half a shrimp and mayo bun remaining. It was an encounter with intense craving for me, I just couldn’t let it sit there and go to waste. In the end I donated it to my stepfather, who is 82 and loves shrimps.
Over the last few years I have had a number of encounters with food... I went six months without sugar, I’ve started eating less, I’ve simplified my meals. Each time I have found my connection to food has gotten less. I still enjoy a good meal, and I still like biscuits, but I feel less food-related cravings than ever before.
Still this shrimp and mayo bun got to me. What is your relationship with food like?
Comments
I eat my cousins.
Shrimp, tiger prawns and other vegetarians, cows for instance.
However I have lost weight by largely cutting out sugar and junk food, going over to Stevia for baking at the moment. Eating more vegetarian food. Tonight making fresh Tagliatelle with mozzarella and aubergines (egg plant) - yum (may have to add a tin of tuna for flavour - yep fish for a balanced diet)
Long live food. Do not eat substitutes.
A love/hate one that I am trying to treat with metta and understanding
Bravo! I find it interesting that the monks try and treat the craving for food by eating less and eating fewer times a day, that they try and reach a point of dispassion with it.
In a way the craving for food is the original craving, the primordial one. You encounter it early in life, and it is often a source of conflict with siblings.
I wouldn't say mine is a love/hate one, although I do get the sentiment.
For me, it's a struggle.
First, I am very high-protein minded, and that, to me, means meat.
I have prolonged periods of vegetarianism, where I consume vegetarian sources of protein, but then succumb to the temptation of a dish containing meat, and go through a time where my diet's central focus is chicken, fish, or pork. Don't often have beef, and even more rarely, lamb...
Having thalassemia minor is apparently a mechanism that heightens the need for protein, and for me, try as I might, taking high doses of Folic acid and eating copious quantities of vegetative-sourced protein, doesn't quite do the trick.
Which really bugs me no end. Because the nub of the problem is that I also love meat.
Coming from a Mediterranean, food loving family (4 of my cousins across my family work as chefs) and having had the privilege of sampling foods from all over the world, I cannot begin to describe the level of inner conflict I experience when faced with the dilemma of social and moral conscience.
Which is why I totally 'get' both sides, and why militant, extreme strident voices from either camp, get my back up, because I can't abide either side beating round the head of the other.
It's unnecessary and uncalled for.
It's a struggle. Honestly it is.
Meat substitutes are all very well and improving all the time, and I do enjoy them.
But there's a way to go before I can sit for a meal and be totally unaware of any textural or flavour difference.
It's criminal of me to mind that much.
And believe me, a struggle I deal with all the time.
I gave up eating meat one year ago, when I started becoming interested in Buddhism. My diet now approx 90% vegan / 10% vegetarian, I’m not sufficiently focussed that I look for alternatives to say, eggs in cake, cheese on pizza etc.,
I couldn’t reconcile, for myself, following Buddhist teachings with continuing to eat meat and fish. I just couldn’t. I found giving up very easy, all I had to do was focus on the animals, rather than myself.
I know. I know, I know, I know all that.
This is why my heart is in a constant turmoil and my head a perpetual struggle. I know what you say, @Alex is totally inarguably true.
I know this. I don't and never would, argue.
But dammit, the Buddha said I could....
For example, I used to love oysters.
I never touch them now, because in order to eat oysters, they have to be killed for you.
I don't eat little fish or prawns, shrimps or shellfish, because in order to make a meal, hundreds have to be killed. Rather one fish, than hundreds of little ones.
So there is some sense to my propriety, but many could call it hypocrisy, and for want of any useful counter-argument, I accept this, and continue my inner struggle and turbulence.
But I'm not here to either justify or defend myself. I am responsible to me.
I'm just here to add to the 'craving' bit.
@federica Apologies, I’ve realised the timing of my comments may be perceived to be related to yours or other posts here.....they’re not, they’re totally independent, I was just commenting upon my own relationship with food and how it’s changed :-)
No apology necessary, @Alex, your comments are totally valid and any criticism therein, is perceived by me, not implied by you.
Not letting something go to waste doesn't sound like a craving? Even if it were, you didn't consume it but with the intention of not wasting it, you gave it to someone else.
I accept that in order to continue my life, I must consume another life form.
As a corollary, my existence results directly or indirectly in the extinction of countless other life forms.
Delineation and causation aside, ultimately, I must consume or die.
Prior to the latter, I am inevitably engaged in the former.
When it comes to craving Hunger Pains come to mind...
More often than not my body tell me if it is lacking certain food stuff , so I guess that's when it craves the 'nourishment' that it needs... sweet, savory,fats, proteins etc etc..
It's possible that the reason why at times we tend to over compensate (stuff our faces so to speak)
could be due to the built in primeval survival instinct,
....the times when our hunter gatherer ancestors didn't know when or where their next meal would come from...
In a nutshell mindful eating for me, is to select a food source which involves the least possible suffering in its acquirement and being conscious and appreciative of this when enjoying the taste...
However I'm not always successful
relationship to food?sometimes eat to live;sometimes eat for pleasure. biological necessity.
the art of eating.portion,balance nutrition.being aware of consumption.listen to the stomach.
I’m a lonely only (no siblings), but an emotional eater (stress triggered).
Hmm...My body is food and food is me ... So I'd say food and I have a close relationship...I eat it and it becomes me....
You are what you eat...Eat well