Food cycles

There seems to be a lot on the "To Do" list at the moment. Most pressing seems to be the need to stop eating fast food so regularly, for the typical health/feel better/look like a model reasons. It has often been a personal myth of my own that if a person goes through a surge of eating fast food, peaking in a session which includes a particularly greasy specimen, they will have reached the temporary point of no-return, the crest of the hamburger hill. On the other side is a gentle downhill stroll, full of yoghurt and fresh fruit, good times and model looks, right before you reach the bottom of the valley where another great hamburger hill is now in front of you. The appetite grows once again, the fast food makes a comeback to the diet, and you can't help but draw the conclusion that eating is a cyclical process. 

But this is nothing new. Eating has always been a cyclical process, wherever you live. In America, the Turkey trolley is rolled out but once a year. Thanks are given for its arrival, and then the annual feast begins. In England, it is tradition to eat Toffee covered apples on Fireworks Night. If ever there was a novel way of finding your five a day fruit and vegetables by covering its entire surface area with teeth-rotting glucose, then it was the Toffee Apple, but thank god and Guy Fawkes that it only arrives every November. 

In Spain, custom dictates that when the clock strikes midnight on 31st December, everyone must rapidly consume 12 grapes, one for each chime of the clock. The habit began in 1909 when grape growers from Alicante considered it a good way to offloade surplus production for that year. Seedless to nay, ever since Spaniards have loved the custom (Mexicans also jumping on the bandwagon), and so have the grape growers. 

A bible could be written about religious eating cycles. Christians indulge in a bit of bread and wine every Sunday, which is certainly not sustainable for the low-carb Atkins Christians. Unless of course the bread was to be wholegrain, but then how can we honestly consider the body of Jesus Christ to be wholegrain? In France, do they break the brioche and drink the wine on a Sunday? Aside from this weekly binge, one festival stands out in particular: Shrove Tuesday. 

This particular gem of a religious holiday (my favorite, let it be known) works on the wonderful premise of using up all of the plainest foodstuffs in the cupboard, rich ingredients like eggs, milk and sugar go into the pancake recipe to prepare for the Lent fast. A useful way of getting rid of those high-carb food bombs that you wont need for this 40-day fast you're about to embark upon. All of this sounds great in theory. In practice, this yearly food cycle sees Christians and non-christians alike out in the supermarkets, stocking up on chocolate dipping sauce, maple syrup, lemon juice, blueberries and ice cream. All of this is piled aplenty onto their pre-fast pancake drive, and the surplus is left to rot in the cupboard, possibly for an entire year until the cycle repeats itself. 

But my own eating patterns don't possess the same historico-religious importance, and they certainly aren't high-brow enough to use phrases such as 'historico-religious'. No, I started by saying that this week's "To Do" list was a busy one, but the main task is to beat the bulge of the fast food enticement. Currently, I have a craving. Even after coming off the worse in a greasy battle between myself and a Sausage Egg McMuffin last Sunday, I still craved a quarter pounder on Tuesday, and gleefully ate one. But this has got to stop, pancake day is only six months away, and I shall have to start stocking up on Nutella any day now. Not to mention the twelve grapes at new years, both Novemeber and December turkeys, and all of that bread and wine in the meantime. Yes, if there is anything "To Do" this week, it's to make sure that my diary knows of the important food cycles. 

To Do: Eat less fast food.