“If you can cancel a child’s hunger during those first three years - from conception to toddlerdom -you create possibilities that stretch decades into the future. If not, the consequences can last for generations.”
Source: First Bite: How We Learn to Eat
“One of the reasons hunger is so hard to pin down is that it is a negative concept, an absence.”
Source: First Bite: How We Learn to Eat
“Hara hachi bu is a Confucian principle, popular in Japan since medieval times, that you should eat until you are only eight-tenths full. This principle has since been given backing by nutrition scientists who note that when we eat there is a time delay between the body receiving the food and the brain registering that we are full. When the urge comes to have a second helping, it’s worth waiting twenty minutes, and the feeling may pass.”
Source: First Bite: How We Learn to Eat
“One of the commonest ways our eating goes wrong is that we consistently choose foods that offer immediate satiation in the belly rather than longer lasting satiety.”
Source: First Bite: How We Learn to Eat
“Soup leaves us full because we believe it will.”
Source: First Bite: How We Learn to Eat
“All soup is soul food.”
Source: First Bite: How We Learn to Eat
“In pretty much every country in the world, something hot and brothy cooked in a pot and served in a bowl is viewed as uniquely nourishing. Soup places low demands on the eater. It treats you as a child, who may or may not know how to use a knife and fork. You do not have to chop, or even to chew. Soup is what our mothers gave us when we were ailing. It’s what we return to after a hard day at work, when all we want to do is curl up in a foetal position on the sofa.”
Source: First Bite: How We Learn to Eat
“Very little about the way we eat is, in fact, logical.”
Source: First Bite: How We Learn to Eat
“Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,
what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.
In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.
And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.
- Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower”
Source: Sonnets to Orpheus
“It’s easy to confuse hunger with other emotional states.”
Source: First Bite: How We Learn to Eat