A couple of redditors have recently suggested extremely simple approaches to food, to free up their time for more satisfying activities. One said: You don't actually need food to taste good", so long as it was sufficiently nutritious. Another said he was adopting an 'anti-luxury' approach. He suggested that the pursuit of taste and dietary thrills was a luxury, with all the negative connotations that implies
Two years ago because of incipient diabetes, I chose to turn away from the universal food culture. It was like emerging from a cult or an addiction. All my life I had regarded food through a heady mixture of excitement, desperation, fear and hope. I saw it as an essential social lubricant, and a quasi-religious, in-group, observance. I unthinkingly tended to equate 'good' diet with spirituality, caring for the planet, and being a good person. I was always trying tweak the mix day by day, year by year, decade by decade. I was never too fat or too thin. That wasn't the problem. But I never felt comfortable with food. Whatever I ate, it never satisfied me
So that motivated me to see how simple I could make my diet. Could I find the diet that was right for me, and which covered all the essential nutrients? I started dropping things out. The sequence went like this. First sugar and sweets; then bread and other grains; then less vegetables and all fruit. This left a very spartan but protein-heavy diet. It is extremely simple to prepare, and so satisfying that I usually eat only once a day. It took about a year to feel completely natural.
The most amazing result however, is the simplicity and freedom gives me. I now have an extra hour or two a day. Far less shopping, less preparation, less obsessing about what food may or may not please me today, no search for novelty and so on. This is equivalent to having an extra free day a week, or an extra month or two a year. And, compared to my previous diet, I estimate it saves me about $3000-4000 a year.
Are there any more of you out there who have simplified your life by simplifying your diet? How do you do it?
Submitted October 25, 2020 at 10:19PM by Heraclituss https://ift.tt/3oBtXHk
