Eating mac and cheese cannot seriously be considered a form of rebellion. Except by me, right now, because I have incredible main character syndrome and I think everything I do is important (hence this blog). I don’t want to engage in any food shaming on this blog, but I also want to acknowledge the existence of food shaming. It’s kind of like dialogue in an indie coming-of-age movie: “hey, I know that you feel bad about your grandma dying, but it’s okay, I mean it’s not okay…that she’s dead…but it’s okay that you feel bad about it…”. I don’t want to bring attention to the fact that mac and cheese is considered an “unhealthy” food, but I do want to bring attention to the fact that it’s okay to eat mac and cheese. Essentially, I’m fucked, so let’s just talk about it.
I had the option to choose this bowl today for lunch, a bowl of sweet potato, tofu, rice, sesame seeds, kale, and a bunch of other vegetable-type shit. And honestly, I do love vegetable-type shit. I love a “Buddha” bowl, for example: sticky rice, soy sauce, edamame, avocado, sweet potato, broccoli, mushrooms, and whatever the fuck else you want to put in there, smothered in spicy mayo *chef’s kiss*. But the particular bowl I was considering did not sound good to me; I was in the mood for mac and cheese. And I thought: “why would I spend money on something as nutritionally meh as mac and cheese, when I could eat something healthier?” And these are exactly the kind of thoughts that I started this blog to discuss.
“Healthy” eating, as defined by Harvard (purveyor of app developers, elitism and rape culture), is a balanced plate: lean protein, whole grains, vegetables and fruits. Nothing processed or overly saturated (aka nothing cheap and accessible to everyone). And right away, by telling you that definition, I’ve given you two reasons to listen to it: a moral/societal reason, and a logical, health-conscious one. Logically, if science supports the idea that eating balanced meals as described above will make you healthier, it makes sense to choose that option in order to be healthier, which is something most people want. Morally and socially, you’ll be informed by media and social norms that what you want is to be like the people of Harvard: rich, white (*cough* supremacy), “smart” and successful. So you should eat like them too, right?
This brings me to the issue of “self-control”. Self-control is a lovely ideal: who wouldn’t want to make consistently conscious, measured choices that only further them and their life? Unfortunately, human beings are far more complicated than that (see: history, also your life, also anyone else’s life). As much as we want to have complete control over ourselves, we don’t, and we never will. Our bodies are not in our control, and they contain sensory memories that can overwhelm us at any time (see: those weird flashbacks you get when you smell a deodorant that you wore in grade 7). Learning to work WITH our bodies and these memories is a discussion for another day, but where does that leave us with respect to self-control? We need to pick our battles. How many times have you said to yourself: “I’ve been so good today, I deserve a treat!” That’s picking your battles, and it’s not only normal, it’s fucking smart. Forcing ourselves to fight every single impulse is not only frustrating and difficult, it’s an absolute waste of energy. We get more done for ourselves and the people we care about by being picky about the things we try to force ourselves to do or not do.
So how do we choose what in ourselves we DO want to control, or at least attempt to control? I’d argue that it comes down to two factors that closely map the ones I brought up with that definition: self-direction and other-direction. We either want to do things to make ourselves feel better based on our own values, or we want to do things to make ourselves look better to other people. And I am not going to sit here and say that either one of those is wrong; sometimes, making ourselves look better to other people is a matter of survival (i.e. looking presentable for a job interview). In our individualist Western society, we place an emphasis on doing things “for yourself”, but we don’t often talk about what that means. It means doing things that only intentionally benefit YOUR view of yourself. It’s doing your make-up even though you won’t be leaving the house or seeing anybody, helping someone with no one around to witness and congratulate you, writing a letter to your younger self, all that kind of shit. The “this is for me so that when I lay down at the end of the day or the end of my life, I can look back and go ‘I lived by my values in that moment’” kind of shit.
I think that it’s important to ask ourselves: “who am I controlling myself for?” And be open and curious about the answer. Let’s think about my mac and cheese decision as an example. I wanted mac and cheese, and at the same time, I wanted to be “healthier”. As we examined, the idea of being “healthy” is both logical and socially/morally valuable. I’ve thought about it, and yeah, I want to be healthy because I want to feel better physically and mentally, but also because I want people to think highly of me. I want people to see what I’m eating and go: “wow, health GAWD!” And then I wave them off and pretend it’s no big deal while secretly congratulating myself. Then it’s time to ask: “how do I feel about my answer with respect to my own values?” And this isn’t a foolproof formula. There will be times when you think this to yourself and have no fucking idea what you’re feeling and it won’t help you make your decision in any way. But some days, you might think, as I did, “huh…I don’t really like that I’m focussing in some way on the way other people will think about what I’m eating…and I’ve had a lot of healthy shit today…I think this craving is my body saying ‘let’s party, dawg’ and I wanna party right now…in other words…I value being able to relax and eat what I want sometimes”.
I ate the mac and cheese and kids…it was just okay. I have to be honest. Nobody is holding me accountable to this but me, but I dunno, somebody once told me that I should think about the reasons I’m doing things and ask myself if they’re in line with MY values?! Whatever. The point is, whether the mac and cheese tasted as good as I had hoped or not, I felt good about indulging in it. It felt both intentional and unintentional, like when you hold back when you’re masturbating and then eventually let yourself orgasm…okay weird example…like when you try to fart quietly so you squeeze your butt together but then it just increases the pitch so it sounds like a balloon…umm…okay here, like when you accidentally say “I love you” for the first time, and you feel kind of foolish and awkward but you know, deep down, that you meant it, and that it was right. Eating mac and cheese feels like that. It’s warm, it’s inconsistent, and it’s meaningful. Or it’s pasta and cheese and once again I’m reading way too much into this.
I have to be honest with you: I got a salad with the mac and cheese because I still felt guilty about eating it. And really, the salad was good, and the nutrients were good, and it wasn’t a bad decision. But the reason that I made it was concerning to me. If I asked myself that question, “how do I feel about this decision with respect to my own values?”, I think I’d say that I felt ashamed before I got the salad, and I wish that I hadn’t acted on that feeling of shame. Because mac and cheese is nothing to be ashamed of. Enjoying your food is not an act of self-harm. There are always questionable situations and you can enjoy food and harm yourself in the process, but it is not an inherently negative act to choose something that feels good and doesn’t actively follow every available guideline for health and wellness. And that is something that, unfortunately, I am still learning.