Thought for Food -- Or: `Fast' Food
I heartily sympathize with the thoughts expressed by L. Kohn
on eating trends in this generation. I think that in a
generation which is so conscious about speech,
kashrus and mouth-related mitzvos, we need to
refocus on other aspects that contribute equally to our
spiritual well being.
It should be interesting for people to note how frequently
they eat, especially mothers at home, and how often they
allow -- or shtup (Yiddish for `stuff') -- food into
their children's mouths. Perhaps this all begins at birth
with feeding on demand, as opposed to the old method of
feeding every three or four hours. Now I am all for feeding
on demand, primarily for busy nursing mothers who can never
know how much food their babies got at any given feeding,
and for their babies who have gotten used to their mothers
as pacifiers and won't even take water in a bottle. This is
the flaw in what I propose further on. Still, by the age of
a year, eating should not be a continuous process.
I think we should work on our family's (and our own) sense
of restraint regarding food, and have the kitchen off bounds
for set amounts of time. The kitchen can be closed from
three to five, for example, with a pitcher of drinks on the
living room table and perhaps some fruit. Period. It can be
made a fun project, like: Let's see how long we can hold
out, and then we'll have a sit- down snack together. This
can be a definite chinuch project in breaking habits
or refocusing on the purpose of food. (And as was once
suggested in the FAMILY section, it can be a good
preparation for Pesach - to make eating mandatory in the
kitchen/dining room alone, off bounds elsewhere.)
I am really leading up to something that has disturbed me
for a long time, and I know this will raise a lot of flak. I
am talking about FASTING.
Is it my imagination that this generation has become very
flabby and weak with regards to fasting on fast days? In my
time, most men, women, and children a year before the age of
mitzva fasted on fast days, without making much of a
to-do. Here, in Eretz Yisroel, the `practice' has become
lax. I can understand that the outlook has been ingrained
differently for Jerusalemites, and Israelis at large, who
have suffered wars, austerity, food shortages, epidemics,
sieges and so on throughout history. Up to about twenty
years ago, food has never been plentiful here since the
churbon, I believe, so psychologically, people felt
weak even when nutritionally they may have been up to
par.
In my chessed volunteer work, I have come across many
people and have marveled at their different outlooks towards
fasting in particular. One woman from Iraq says that in the
old country, all women fasted from twelve on, and took it
for granted. And since it was the norm, you went along with
it and expected your body to psychosomatically comply to
social demands. Mind over food. The exceptions were few.
Another woman from Morocco, also unschooled like the above,
was accustomed to fasting as a norm, and today, in her
middle sixties, continues to do so religiously, has NEVER
missed a fast!
In total contrast, there is another woman who says she only
fasts on Yom Kippur, not even on Tisha B'av, since she has
always been either pregnant or within two years of
birth. This was a rabbinical rule which far be it from
me to question. I DO question the idea that she went to ask
it altogether.
That's my big question, and I am wondering if we changed our
attitude towards eating in general and towards fasting, we
couldn't just slide in and out of fast days without much
physical ado.
I once envisioned some philanthropist coming along and
giving a money reward to teenage girls for each fast
completed - just to get them into the habit. What a hue and
cry there would be! But I've made my point, I hope.
I have one daughter, for example, who does not give treats
to her children, and has definite times when they eat and
when they don't. I once sent her a package of things she
needed along with someone traveling to her town. Three weeks
later she told me she still had the packages of Bamba I had
sent. She had not found the `opportunity' to give it to the
kids. Forget about sweets, Bamba is a simple, supposedly
healthful, or at least not harmful, nosh. Yet she felt it
unnecessary -- it had no place in her daily regimen.
To those who agree that our generation has a problem with
compulsive eating, I would recommend the simple experiment
above of monitoring how often we eat. Then, going on to
three structured meals with no in-betweens. Mealtime will
have a different quality when you come hungry to the table.
If you wish to bend these rules, make different ones, like
the suggested fruit bowl, or a suggested structured
tea/coffee break, with nothing before or after. The
important thing is to establish the rules you wish to keep
and relegate eating to function, not pastime. You can print
them and post them on the kitchen door, if you like. In our
home, for example, we post a sign on Pesach of food rules,
like not eating in others' homes, not eating something that
fell on the floor, not putting food on uncovered surfaces
etc. Rules that create an awareness that we are eating;
eating has become too automatic. I would venture to say, to
such a degree that we often forget a brocha
acharona.
When my kids were small, a few mothers tried to institute
changes in the birthday pecklach in kindergarten, and
asked the teacher to make the treats uniform. Just like a
badatz hechsher became an absolute requirement, so
can no-sweets, and down to a definite budget. Mothers can
get together and insist. There is strength in numbers, dear
mothers, and even with your teenage daughters, you can
establish rules of: only pretzels, only crackers, only
fruit, only home-baked cookies, only from four to five and
not before meals, whatever, and stick to it. Besides, if you
just see how much money goes down the esophagus drain for
air (Bamba) or juni, you will see I am right.
Would love to see a new trend, and see other grandmothers
echoing these sentiments in this section! Or have I said too
much of a mouthful?
