how to eat just one potato chip

**An Encouraging Word, Vol. 6**

an occasional note from Jean Fain

 Harvard Medical School psychotherapist & hypnosis instructor

 Published Oct. 21, 2006

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Read on if you’re interested in losing weight without the deprivation associated with dieting. Feel free to forward “An Encouraging Word” to a friend. If you didn’t receive this note directly from Jean Fain and you’d like to subscribe, send an email to the address above with the word “subscribe” in the subject field. If you’d rather not receive future announcements, send an email with the word “unsubscribe” in the subject field.

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Ed Espe Brown, author of the Tassajara cookbooks of my youth, was in Cambridge, Massachusetts, recently to talk about life lessons learned cooking.  From his humble beginnings as dishwasher at a Zen center to manager of a hip San Francisco restaurant, Brown has made an illustrious career and a spiritual path inspiring people to cook and eat mindfully.

As vines of sun-kissed tomatoes have given way to fields polka-dotted with pumpkins, Brown’s words of wisdom have brought renewed wonder and pleasure to my chopping, mixing, sautéing, baking and savoring the season’s bounty. I keep his voice fresh in mind by rereading the three cookbooks of his I’ve owned for three-plus decades (“Tassajara Cooking,” “Tassajara Bread Book” and “Tassajara Recipe Book”) and making my way through one out-of-print, new-to-me volume, “Tomato Blessings and Radish Teachings.”

 “Tomato Blessings” is somewhat different than Brown’s other cookbooks. Besides favorite recipes (the lentil soup is so simple, so nourishing), it’s chock-full of meditative musings on his two favorite subjects – cooking and eating.  “How to Eat Just One Potato Chip” is especially clip-and-save worthy. Here’s a condensed variation of this provocative meditation from beliefnet.com (http://www.beliefnet.com/story/17/story_1742_1.html).

When I announced our potato-chip-eating meditation, I was greeted with various gripes, taunts, and complaints: “I can’t eat just one….” “You’re going to leave us hanging with unsatisfied desire….” Nonetheless, I remained steadfast in my instructions and passed around a bowl of potato chips, urging each participant to take just one….

First the room was loud with crunching, then quiet with savoring and swallowing…. Many people had been startled by their experience: “I thought I would have trouble eating just one, but it really wasn’t very tasty….” “There’s an instant of salt and grease, and then some tasteless pulpy stuff in your mouth….”  “If I was busy watching TV, I would think they were great, but when I actually experience what’s in my mouth, it’s kind of distasteful.”

That one potato chip even surprised me, the experienced meditator, with its tastelessness. Now I walk past the walls of chips in the supermarket rather easily without awakening insidious longings and the resultant thought that I really ought to “deny” myself. I don’t feel deprived. There’s nothing there worth having….

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On a different, but related note….

Most of us have good intentions to eat healthfully, so what triggers us to gorge mindlessly? That’s the subject of Brian Wansink’s new book, “Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think.” At Cornell University’s Food and Brand Lab, Wansink has identified some of the things that lead us to inhale super-sized portions, from the more obvious (the size of your plate & serving spoon) to the more surprising (the speed at which your dining companion eats).  Intrigued? Here’s the link to a recent New York Times feature on Wansink’s illuminating research: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/dining/11snac.html?ex=1318219200&en=6db57e8afe38e6e2&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

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Hot off the press….

Just in time to deflate holiday stress, “Float To Health & Wellbeing: A Jean Fain Relaxation CD” is now available at cdbaby.com. This proven combination of guided imagery and positive suggestion will ease, if not alleviate, whatever ails you physically, psychologically and emotionally, including stress, anxiety, insomnia, pain, eating disorders and other food-related problems, hot flashes and PMS. But don’t take my word for it, listen to a two-minute audio-clip at jeanfain.com and experience what it’s like to float away from the concerns of the day.

An Encouraging P.S….

In case you missed the previous volumes of “An Encouraging Word,” they’re now archived on my website’s newsletter page.

P.P.S….

May you eat, drink and be healthy this holiday season.

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In addition to seeing clients in private practice, Jean Fain teaches hypnosis at Cambridge Health Alliance, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, and she writes for O, The Oprah Magazine, among other women's magazines. More information about Jean Fain’s services and weight-loss CDs is available on her website (www.jeanfain.com).

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(Click the Newsletter link below to read other volumes of "An Encouraging Word.")

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