Everyday Systems

Nicest of the Damned wrote: If you've studied Christian theology, it's a little like the Protestant doctrine of sola gratia, by grace alone. You get S days, from God, the universe, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the S Day Fairy, reinhard, Pope Gregory XIII (inventor of the Gregorian calendar), whoever invented the weekend, whatever you believe. You don't get them because you earned them, you get them just because that's how No S works. You don't get them because you behaved yourself, you get them whether you behave or not. There's nothing you can do to earn more S days.

jellybeans01 wrote:I ran five miles so I can have an extra plate, snack or etc. I'm being naughty and need to get back on track.

Michael Pollan wrote:No wonder we have become, in the midst of our astounding abundance, the world's most anxious eaters. A few years ago, Paul Rozin, a University of Pennsylvania psychologist, and Claude Fischler, a French sociologist, began collaborating on a series of cross-cultural surveys of food attitudes. They found that of the four populations surveyed (the U.S., France, Flemish Belgium and Japan), Americans associated food with health the most and pleasure the least. Asked what comes to mind upon hearing the phrase ''chocolate cake,'' Americans were more apt to say ''guilt,'' while the French said ''celebration''; ''heavy cream'' elicited ''unhealthy'' from Americans, ''whipped'' from the French. The researchers found that Americans worry more about food and derive less pleasure from eating than people in any other nation they surveyed.

Compared with the French, we're much more likely to choose foods for reasons of health, and yet the French, more apt to choose on the basis of pleasure, are the healthier (and thinner) people. How can this possibly be? Rozin suggests that our problem begins with thinking of the situation as paradoxical. The French experience with food is only a paradox if you assume, as Americans do, that certain kinds of foods are poisons. ''Look at fat,'' Rozin points out. ''Americans treat the stuff as if it was mercury.'' That doesn't, of course, stop us from guiltily gorging on the stuff. A food-marketing consultant once told me that it's not at all uncommon for Americans to pay a visit to the health club after work for the express purpose of sanctioning the enjoyment of an entire pint of ice cream before bed.