8 February 2012
The Allure of Low-Quality Foods
The Super Bowl is one time of year when I unabashedly eat low-quality junk (trust me, it’s not the only time). What do I mean by “low-quality”? Mostly cheap chain food that’s been prepared in huge quantities to be consumed in, well… huge quantities.
This year, we ordered Chicken Parmesan pizza from Jet’s, wings from Champp’s, and then my man got me what I call movie nachos — just cheese sauce and tortilla chips — because he knows I love them.
Let me tell you something: You can make real, high-quality nachos with homemade or similar chips, shredded marinated chicken, seasoned beans, expensive cheese, lettuce, tomato, guacamole (I could keep going), and they WILL taste good. They’ll taste amazing. I love those kind of nachos too.
But to me, there’s something about that cheap queso-esque cheese over plain store-bought tortilla chips that really hits the spot in a way that real deal nachos just don’t.
So I get that there are some foods that, no matter how nutritionally abyssal or chock full of chemical additives, people just love (as the author of The End of Overeating would argue, they were designed to be not just loved but obsessed over).
The cheap foods we just can’t get enough of — despite having access to higher quality options — are designed to be addicting. That much is clear. So I don’t recommend making them a regular, everyday part of your diet. But if you’d often rather have a cheap burger from the greasy diner down the street than a homemade grilled one made from top sirloin and seasoned to perfection, I can understand why.
That’s why it’s so important to make a list of the foods you really love and own it. Don’t feel guilty about your list for one second. You might love cheap burgers because when you were growing up, your dad took you to get one every time you ran errands with him on the weekend. Or maybe you just genuinely love the taste… That’s okay, too.
I recommend making the low-quality foods a part of your life in a very intentional way. First, make a list of the ones you love and the ones you’re just “meh” about. Then, decide on a reasonable number of those kind of treats you’d like to have in a given month (once a week? Twice a week? What seems reasonable but also won’t prevent you from reaching your goals?). Finally, make sure you can eat those foods without going totally overboard every time you try.
I know I can seem like a big food snob, and sometimes, I am. But I appreciate the allure of low-quality foods because sometimes they hit the spot in a way nothing else can. There’s no reason to fully eliminate movie nachos, candy bars, or chain food from our lives completely; we just have to be very intentional about how we eat it.
Which “low-quality” foods do you crave?
