Making food choices part of a well-lived life is a different challenge than helping people to overcome eating disorders: Health is much more than just the absence of pathology. And psychoanalysis has lots to say about both.

The previous issue of PsychMatters, (titled "Conversations about Eating Disorders with Family and in Therapy: Binge Eating, Anorexia and Bulimia)” showcased three expert clinicians illustrating different dimensions of disordered eating: the complexities of bariatric surgery that can reverberate within a family, the challenges parents face when they suspect their child has an eating disorder, and the intricate choreography of body-talk between therapists and eating-disordered patients.

However illuminating those clinical portraits may be—and they are very illuminating—they are not the full story psychoanalysts can tell about eating and food. Many psychoanalysts are also interested in the many roles food choices can play in the psychology of health and well-being. As I've learned from both my clinical work and my personal experience, exploring a healthy relationship with food can become a vital part of building a good life. After all, food choices provide opportunities for abundant pleasures, engaging activities, nourishing relationships, and meaningful connections.

"The American Way of Eating" vs. "Eat Local and Laugh"

For many Americans, a reality of life is that the American Way of Eating actually prevents food choices from being part of a well-lived life. Our culture supports food choices that are neither physically nor psychologically healthy. If a well-lived life is your aim—and I highly recommend it—you will have to find your own path away from the easy and usual towards more meaningful and engaging pleasures.  Furthermore, as Michael Pollan and others have documented, ours is a way of eating that is also not environmentally sustainable: Our plentiful (and cheap) food supply floats on an ocean of oil and gas and that simply cannot go on.

Having too much is kind of an embarrassing problem to have. But we live surrounded by a profound overabundance of cheap and not truly nutritious calories. That is to say, always available fast foods, huge portions, super-sized sugar drinks, corn-syrup-based "meal solutions," and donuts seeming to rain from the heavens. While we sit in the midst of such unprecedented caloric excess, large agra-business bombards us with marketing messages to eat more, and then more. Too much is never enough! And because evolution equipped us to horde calories during times of abundance, the temptation to have more and then even more can often feel irresistible.

The costs in physical health of these cheap, convenient, heavily marketed calories are astounding. Many who eat American will go on to develop diabetes or contribute to a growing national obesity epidemic (about 32 percent nationwide according to a 2006 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).

Plus, the American way of eating is just not psychologically sustainable. In addition to destroying the environment and our physical health, we also deprive ourselves and our intimates of the many psychological satisfactions and pleasures that can come from eating sustainably. The American Way of Eating, built as it is on the illusion that more is always better, actually undermines a well-lived life.

But change is possible. Not by diets -- we know those rigid top-down restrictions just don't work, not for the long run. Diets typically result in cycles of relative abstinence and guilt, not sustainably healthy habits. Rather, psychologically sustainable change can be achieved by trying to derive as much meaningful gratification as possible from our calories (which is not to be confused with consuming as much food as possible). The goal is to take as much pleasure as one can from food choices rather than constantly hunting and gathering more calories.

The question is how to do that, how to maximize gratification? Well, you have to change both what and how you eat, what I'm calling "Eat Local and Laugh."

First, some foods, no matter what you do, are limited in what they can provide. No matter how hard you try to savor it as a pleasure-giving experience, a fast-food lunch designed to be wolfed-down on the run has a very low limit on how much enjoyment it provides. You'll get your calories, lots of them, but not much else, and you will be undermining your health and harming the environment. But with other foods, the more you look for gratifying opportunities, the more you can find. So, the first principle of maximizing enjoyment is to eat food with the greatest potential to be enjoyed: hence, eat local. Seasonal food purchased close to where it was raised, ideally from someone you know and can talk to, provides the richest opportunities for sensual delights, social attachments, gratifying activities, and meaningful connections.

The second principle is, well, you gotta laugh.  The same habits of mind developed to eat fast food, or even organic, processed meal-solutions, limits pleasure because maximizing enjoyment doesn’t just happen -- we don’t just find good experiences on the plate, we make them. Developing new patterns of attention and activity, finding ways to notice, even celebrate, all the potential gratifications on our plates and around our table doesn’t come easily in today’s world.  Culinary mindfulnes actually takes time and effort. It may not seem worth it—or even possible—but it is. Paying a little extra attention to all the steps between farm and table is a good way to start breaking out of the “illusion of more” so one can develop a more satisfying, pleasurable, and healthy approach to food.

Let's look closer at the component parts of maximizing gratification. Of course the abundant pleasures of food include all the obvious sensual delights: taste, smell, feel, appearance, and even ambience and setting. But other sources of gratification can also help tip the balance away from the illusion of more towards having food choices positively contribute to a well-lived life. The sources of gratification in addition to sensual pleasures include social attachments, engaging activities, and meaningful connections.

Meals are not just problems to be solved with the latest processed "meal solution": Eating happens inside relationships. We know that feeling loved and having a "good feed" have gone together since infancy.  And today, even in the midst of our modern hustle-and-bustle, the intimacy families and friends (and even strangers) can find at the table can provide life with deep warmth and profound pleasure. If you make eating more social you will deepen the pleasures of both the relationships and the food. It's worth the time. 

Gratifications can also be found in the shopping and cooking many mistakenly view as simple drudgery. Contrary to the old rule: "Don't play with you food," go ahead, play with your food! The pleasures of play are too psychologically important to take off the table. Although we don't specifically remember the joy in mastering something like walking, the glories of those toddling successes are still with us and can be re-awakened in the kitchen when it becomes a place to balance skill and challenge. Instead of meaningless drudgery to be avoided, shopping and cooking can become engaging activities. Again, it's worth the time.

And as for meaningful connections, when we make dinner, we’re also making meaning. Are you connecting with your community, or supporting an anonymous corporation? Are you expressing care for yourself and others, or are you too frenetically busy to care?  Food choices that express care for self, for intimates, for community, and for the planet (and thereby for future generations) can significantly deepen the gratification experienced. For the third time, it's worth the time.

So, if you take the time to develop your own version of culinary mindfulness — one in which you take as much pleasure as possible from the calories you consume — you just may be surprised at how what used to be a site of struggle becomes part of a well-lived life.

Todd Essig, PhD, is a Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst at the William Alanson White Institute and Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at New York Medical College. He has served on the Editorial Boards for Contemporary Psychoanalysis and the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. He founded, and for 16 years until 2010, was Director of The Psychoanalytic Connection, becoming widely known among colleagues as a pioneer in the innovative uses of information technologies for psychotherapists and other mental health professionals. Having become interested in writing for the general public, he first worked for the startup news site True/Slant and currently writes for Psychology Today where his blog is called "Over-Simulated: Staying Human in a Post-Human World" (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/over-simulated). His clinical practice is in New York City where he treats individuals and couples.

Issue Editor: Janet Tintner, PsyD