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On Scarcity and the Overabundance of Food – Dispatches from the Central Coast

published 2012-09-30 by Brad Dobson

Our food supply is abundant and access to it is unguarded, unbounded. This is not our natural state and promotes poor health and disease. We are forced to rely on mindfulness to overcome millions of years of evolutionary tendency towards eating whatever is a a available without hesitation. We buy too much food to make sure our family is sated. We eat too much food because it makes our body feel good immediately. Our society and culture is built around fulfilling this perceived need.

How can I live a life where I remind my body of the need for a scarcity of food. How can I live a life where abundance of food does not turn into over-eating? Is it as simple as regular fasts? Is it perpetual mindfulness practice during meals? Can I gradually move away from the stranglehold of overabundant food?

Ideas and Habits to Overcome Overabundance

• a one day fast with water, juices, broth and vitamins
• a dinner skipped altogether
• a day without proteins, sugars and starches
• a day with only healthy shakes
• a day with high intensity or long endurance exercise but very low calorie intake
• a consistent, measured, low net calorie intake per day
• ‘slow food’ meal preparation enjoying the process and the wait for the food
• a meal of raw food
• a meal of minimally processed food

Perhaps a little more LESS
and a little less MORE