Back in university days, the studies that showed that babies, given their choice of food, would choose what the body needed and their method of doing this was usually at odds with convention or the advice of 'experts' on a proper diet made quite an impression on me. As did Molly Groger, years later, with her book Eating Awareness Training, which suggested waiting until hungry to eat and then letting the body, guided by hunger, choose what and how much. As do more recent books like Gary Taubes in Good Calories, Bad Calories (the Epilogue is a good precis !).
Choice and hunger and the satiety factor. Buffets are one way of providing us with the choice.
Buffets have come a long way from the deli selections of potato salad, five bean salad, jellied salad, cole slaw.
A local grocery store has a large selection of fruit and vegetables and cheese and meat and eggs and nuts and seeds and leafy greens and pickled items and interesting salads, all displayed in a long counter around which you can walk with a container and choose what you want in whatever amount. It is paid for by weight. The quality of the food is wonderful and it is kept scrupulously clean.
It is an experience to view all that is offered and respond to the visual effect of food ready to eat. It isn't an all-you-can-eat buffet so the greed/guilt aspect is absent.
I would like the option of a non-disposable plate and will begin to take my own cutlery and cup.
This was breakfast a week or so ago - with bacon, eggs and toast ordered separately and with options as to method of preparation and style. Peas in the pod and cole slaw and I think that was an ancient grain salad.
This was another time when fruit and cheese were wanted. I am intrigued by how three orange pieces felt right, and two honey dew and one cube of feta and so on. And how this changes, time to time.
This morning I wanted two black olives with the fruit and they proved a perfect accompaniment.
I like how this gives the opportunity of experiencing satisfaction after eating, of hearing the body's 'voice' which is then stilled until it gets hungry again. Quite liberating.
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