10/8/2017 0 Comments Clean Your PlateTwo spoonfuls of mashed potatoes and half a slice of meatloaf mockingly sit in disarray on the plate in front of me. I feel tired, sluggish, and have reached the brink of a food coma that will leave me incapacitated for the next several hours. Even so, when I look up, I receive a glare from the adults in the room.
“Clean your plate.” “You aren’t moving from the table until you finish your dinner.” “There are children in Africa who are starving, you know.” It was not because I was ungrateful for the food that had been prepared for me with loving hands that I looked upon the remains with such disgust. It was not because I despised meatloaf like most children; on the contrary, I loved it! It was because I couldn’t. Even another bite might have adverse effects that I had no desire to experience. And yet, after a deep breath and a short prayer, I put another bite of potatoes in my mouth, chewed it, and swallowed hard. This was an unwavering mentality in my family. Food was the equivalent of money in a home where money was hard to come by. It was also the equivalent of love. To waste food meant to waste money and reject the love of the hands that prepared it. Therefore, hungry or not, I grew to learn that clearing my plate was not a request; it was a requirement. I became acclimated to this rule of thumb quickly, becoming the perfect model in my family of the ideal child’s eating habits. I remember my grandmother reprimanding my cousin for walking away from the table without finishing his meal. She proudly used me as an example, saying, “Look at Crystal’s plate! She didn’t leave anything behind!” I carried this ideology with me into my teenage years, never leaving a scrap behind at dinner. It was unfathomable to do so, and why would I when I received accolades for my thorough eating habits? When I went to college, it was the ultimate test of my plate cleaning talents, mainly because our choices in foods consisted of food, food, and as much food as possible. My plate nearly always exceeded the limitations of what it was meant to hold, and I could clear it, fill it, and clear it again. Buffet style meals mixed with this mindset was a lethal combination that turned my freshman 15 into freshman 40. During graduate school, I no longer had the convenience of ready-to-go meals that I could just shovel onto my plate and demolish. I was instead responsible for cooking my own food. Having never cooked for only myself, this was a difficult thing to navigate. How much pasta or mac & cheese should I make if I’m the only one eating? I think one box should be good. But here’s the problem: if I’m the only one eating, that technically means that all of the food I’ve prepared is on my plate...so, I guess I have to eat it all. Yes, I would eat the entirety of any meal I cooked for myself every single night. My portion control was virtually nonexistent, and although I had the power to change that, my “clear your plate” mentality completely clouded any logic that may have allowed me to do so. It became my biggest struggle as I relearned how to eat in my adult life. When I started measuring portions against calorie, fat, carbohydrate, and protein content, I was shocked at what I had been consuming. For instance, that ENTIRE box of mac & cheese that I ate in a single sitting totaled 1200 calories, 55.5g of fat, 147g of carbohydrates, and 33g of protein. Just as a frame of reference, my current DAILY nutrition goals are 2000 calories, 63g of fat, 187g of carbohydrates, and 165g of protein. So, I started portioning my food and tracking it religiously. Of course I got some flak from my friends about this when I was sitting at a restaurant, inputting numbers into MyFitnessPal before I could even order, but it kept my food intake in perspective and allowed me to resist succumbing to the eating habits that I possessed for over 20 years of my life. Despite this, I will admit that I still consistently clear my plate. However, MyFitnessPal, measuring cups, and a food scale are the most frequently used items in my kitchen, so everything that goes on my plate fits within the constraints of a healthy nutrition plan. We’ve all grown up with these little quirks that our families instilled within us. Although our families teach us with only the best of intentions, sometimes what we take away from their lessons can have negative impacts. I do not blame my family for emphasizing the need to eat everything that is placed in front of me. When they learned the same lesson, food was a less accessible commodity, and the necessity for clearing one’s plate hinged on the fact that the food that sat in front of them at dinnertime may have been the only food they received for the day. They could not predict that future generations might live in a world in which we can pay $12 to eat as much as we could ever want, and far more than what we could ever need. At some point, we have to filter through those lessons and decide which ones benefit us and which ones do not. We cannot live our lives based on outdated mindsets, and if we cannot remove ourselves from them, we have to find a way to work around them and still do what is good for our own well being.
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