How to change my eating habits

October 28, 2006 1:51 PM

Help me change my eating habits.

Here's the problem: I really like junk food, especailly potato chips and root beer. I have a hard time eating/drinking junk food in moderation, even though I know I should. I'm not interested in a diet -- I'd like to rewire my taste buds so that I find the same/similar satisfaction in snacking on healthier foods as I find in chips and soda.

posted by eustacescrubb to food & drink (33 comments total)

Welcome to the human condition. I think what you're interested is could happen up to a point, but the real secret to cut down on eating junk food is to stop buying it. Buy fruit instead.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 1:55 PM on October 28, 2006 [1 favorite]

Try snacking on baby carrots or tamari roasted almonds instead of chips. Both are crunchy, and one is sweet while the other is salty, which should satiate your cravings somewhat.
posted by Operation Afterglow at 1:56 PM on October 28, 2006

It might help if you tried sweet veggies like carrots and sugar snap peas and snackish fruit like grapes. Do not just put them away in a bag but wash them, put them in a bowl and put the bowl right in the front of your fridge so you will see them when you go to snack. Buy some Perrier or other fuzzy water and sqeeze some lime juice in it.
posted by Iron Rat at 1:57 PM on October 28, 2006

Try baking super thin-sliced sweet potaotes in the oven for about 20 minutes at 400 degrees or so. Before putting them in, lightly spray them with olive oil (I use one of those hand-pumped refillable canisters) and a good dose of salt. This gives you crunchy, salty, yummy, and healthy all together. Sort of like potato chips but much higher in nutritional value and not fried.
posted by otherwordlyglow at 2:14 PM on October 28, 2006 [1 favorite]

Airpopped popcorn sprinkled with Mrs. Dash is a reasonable sub; also Japanese rice crackers taste way worse for you than they are.
posted by DenOfSizer at 2:18 PM on October 28, 2006

You are a Junk Food Junkie. The first step is admitting it, and by your post you are well on your way.

Cut out the junk food all together, cold turkey. After a month or two you won't really miss it and it won't even really taste that good, especially if you have reduced fats in your diet. OK, I am joking about being a junkie, but eliminating junk food from your diet for a few months will really work.
posted by caddis at 2:19 PM on October 28, 2006

Add one healthy thing a week. Once you start to eat them, you'll most likely like them.
posted by Ironmouth at 2:36 PM on October 28, 2006

Are there really no healthy foods you enjoy at all?

If you're like most of us, you like a nice ripe plum about as much as you like a chocolate bar; you just eat chocolate bars more often, so when you want something tasty they spring to mind first.

Eat more plums. After a while, your brain will "learn" to crave them.
posted by nebulawindphone at 2:37 PM on October 28, 2006

You really need to do the hard thing: quit cold turkey. Gradually cutting down is unrealistic if you want to change for the long term. Retraining your taste buds requires that you only eat unrefined foods for a while. This means no white flour if you can manage it, no sugar that isn't in the form of fresh fruit, salads for snacks. Popcorn is pretty healthy too. None of that butter microwave stuff though.

This really works well and whenever I eat healthy I find myself junking out maybe once or twice a month. Exercise probably helps with feeling healthier overall.
posted by shownomercy at 2:50 PM on October 28, 2006

Cut out the junk food all together, cold turkey. After a month or two you won't really miss it and it won't even really taste that good

Right on. I think this is about your only option really; just quit eating the stuff you want out of your life. I wouldn't go quite so far as caddis because I think it still will taste good if you start again later, but it's a chance you'll have to deal with. Once you get used to not having something, your cravings really do go away. Could take 3-4 weeks, but tough it out. I did this with soda and now I barely ever have it, or even really want it.

As to how to make yourself *like* healthy food, well... sort of the same thing in reverse. Keep it around, and when you get hungry, only let yourself reach for something healthy.
posted by rkent at 2:51 PM on October 28, 2006

You should check out the book "You, the Owner's Manual." After reading it, I couldn't eat junk food for a long, long time. One of the things they discuss is that fat is actually a learned taste- you don't really have taste buds for fat. This means that over time, you can reduce it and totally eliminate it from your diet, and after a while you won't like it anymore. While I think the cold turkey/gradual debate varies from person to person, I think eliminating fat is doable.

As far as sugars, you can simply replace sugar with something else sweet. Another key thing they advocate is avoiding high fructose corn syrup. HFCS actually inhibits your body's signal that tells you that you are full- which is why people end up drinking 2-3 sodas at a time.
posted by unexpected at 2:55 PM on October 28, 2006 [1 favorite]

As a similar junkie, over time I've trained myself to enjoy baby carrots and hummus as a replacement for chips. That's my only triumph though, so I'll be keeping my eye on this thread as well.
posted by wuzandfuzz at 3:01 PM on October 28, 2006

It's taken me a couple of years, but I'm now at the point where I think of junk food/fast food as garbage, effluent, sewage (do you really want to be putting that into your mouth?). Think of how much sugar goes into that root beer - would you eat a whole cup of sugar (and what's it doing to your teeth)? How about the fat and grease in those chips - they're a big old stick of lard. And don't replace them with the low-fat/low-carb versions, because you know that they taste like the crap that they are.

If you're going to chow down, eat good food. You're worth it.

Works for me.
posted by hangashore at 3:15 PM on October 28, 2006

I agree with caddis about going cold turkey to lose a taste for something. I stopped drinking sodas altogether, and now I ocasionally take a sip of my SOs soda and it tastes awful, overly sweet and chemical. Its odd, but my theory is that taste is mostly psychological. You like the familiarity of something you eat often, its not really, truly the taste of it, just that the familiarity of that taste is comforting. If you can find something more healthy to replace your favourite junk food, you may find you can just re-train your taste buds. I also used the same method to make myself like drinking V8 juice. Hated it at first, but I kept drinking it and now I love the taste! It does require some serious willpower and you have to want to do it. Good luck!
posted by Joh at 3:16 PM on October 28, 2006

I have a serious sweet tooth, but soda was the one thing I was able to mostly cut out when I decided to try. When I craved it, I drank it, but cut with a little club soda. I increased the proportion of club soda over time. It was pretty easy, and now I usually drink club soda with a splash of limeade in it instead of soda, and I often find straight soda too syrupy to even be appealing.
posted by daisyace at 3:38 PM on October 28, 2006

just don't buy this crap, so of an evening when you open the fridge there ain't no junk food and no root beer there. as someone wrote, buy fruit. buy nuts. buy sparkling water which tastes, to my palate, slightly sweet and may allay the root beer craving. put it this way: either you just cut it out, or you become increasingly fat, lethargic, possibly impotent, eventually perhaps diabetic.
posted by londongeezer at 3:57 PM on October 28, 2006

I gave up all fast food for my New Year's resolution this year. After about 6 months of being fast-food-free, I started thinking about how I would celebrate at the end of the year with a pile of hamburgers and tacos. Now, as the year draws to a close, that doesn't appeal to me at all. I may never eat fast food again. I've lost the taste for it. I don't crave it. I don't even think about it.

So, I guess I'm advocating what others have said. If you want to rewire yourself to not crave junk food, it's pretty simple: stop indulging in it.
posted by ecrivain at 4:48 PM on October 28, 2006

"You crave what you eat." Start stuffing yourself with what you think you're supposed to eat, even if you've already eaten junk food or you know you're going to.

It's also helpful if you get sick from the junk food. I haven't eaten fast food since I had the first allergic reaction of my life to a McChicken sandwhich. Ask your McDonalds cashier if he could fondle himself before touching your food. Or just go to Taco Bell.
posted by stavrogin at 5:20 PM on October 28, 2006

One of the easiest things my husband and I did that reduced my craving for "bad" food was to start an assembly-line of salad fixings and have a salad (with low-fat or no-fat dressing) every day for lunch. I am now a sweet baby lettuces junkie. And Newman's Lowfat Raspberry Vinagrette junkie as well.
posted by Medieval Maven at 5:35 PM on October 28, 2006

I nth the advice to go cold turkey on the toxic stuff. Specifically, added salt, sugar, and corn syrup. Just don't eat any of it for a month. Before you know it, strawberries will start tasting like candy.
posted by bingo at 5:39 PM on October 28, 2006

A few suggestions...Don't cut out the junkfood altogether, but don't keep it in the house. If you limit it only to hors d'euvre tables and the occasional restaurant appetizer, it's not going to do you much harm. Also, it may be easier for you to limit your portions this way.

Also, there are many delicious but healthful foods out there, but it takes more planning and creativity to find what you like. I would focus on eating high-quality, flavorful food. Maybe you'll want to spend more on healthful "delicacies" that you really enjoy. Get the good quality, flavorful cheeses and olives; if you like exotic fruits, get those; buy *really* good bread, etc. Try new things and I think over time you'll find that you prefer these complex flavors to the simple (but tasty!) flavors in the food you used to eat.
posted by mintchip at 5:50 PM on October 28, 2006

I've worked a couple of food service jobs, and I noticed whatever type food I'm preparing, I lose interest in (unless I'm really hungry), even cakes, cookies and other treats. Something about being constantly surrounded by the smell of the items. Perhaps you could buy a couple bags of fast food and just keep them around yourself at all times.
posted by Jasper McLean at 5:56 PM on October 28, 2006

No junkfood in the house, no fast food restaurants. I kicked my junk food habit decades ago, but I still enjoy a few Cheetos now and then when people bring them in to work. First cold turkey, a few months, perhaps even a year or more in hard cases, and then all things in moderation. To make it work you really have to devote yourself to finding great tasting healthy food, and not just faux, healthy, replacement foods for your favorite junk foods. Prepare to spend more money on food, but make it a fun quest to find the great foods in life. I recommend the cookbook from Rebar. That place was the find of a lifetime, and I live several thousand miles away.
posted by caddis at 6:04 PM on October 28, 2006

mintchip wrote..
A few suggestions...Don't cut out the junkfood altogether, but don't keep it in the house.

Amen.

For most people, cold turkey results in a large and very satisfying binge after a few weeks or so. Taking something that you currently love (and that your body craves) and suddenly saying "No more of that" is just asking for trouble.

Taking it out of the house will help you remove it from your daily diet, but still allow you to enjoy it now and then.

As for what to replace it with ... well, I definitely want to echo the people who have suggested finding a healthier food that you actually like. Trying to train yourself into eating something requires a discipline that many people simply don't have.

One thing you might try is an organic fruit co-op: in most cities you can get a basket of fresh fruit delivered to your doorstep once a week. And organic or not, once you've tasted fruit straight off the tree you'll understand why it got into our diets in the first place.
posted by tkolar at 8:13 PM on October 28, 2006

It takes a lot of experimenting, finding what kind of healthy food tastes good. I'm still a sinner, but it was so strange to learn that I loved Brussle sprouts ... I had no idea. Hummus, babaghanoush (sp?), olives, pita, whole wheat pasta, air popped popcorn with red pepper ... these things are entering my life, and slowly replacing the shit.

Soy crisps are not disgusting.
posted by Bookhouse at 8:28 PM on October 28, 2006

Oooo, bookhouse, are you talking about the white cheddar soy crisps... whose brand I can't remember? Those things are amaaaaazing. They taste good even measured against junk food.
posted by wuzandfuzz at 9:51 PM on October 28, 2006

I used to be a serious junk food addict all through my teens and twenties. When I decided to make a change I started with the worst stuff first. Switch to diet soda immediately. I probably cut 1500 calories a day out of my diet with that one alone. It'll suck at first, but you'll get used to it. While it's not nearly as bad, I also switched to drinking my coffee black. I can't tolerate anything in my coffee now. Plus, now when people ask me how I like my coffee I can now say "strong and black...(raising eyebrows) just like my women". It's worth it for that alone.

I also cut out fast food almost completely. If I did give in I tried to be as healthy as possible - chicken or fish instead of a burger, small fry, ect. - and never super-size anything! A big mac is 590 calories. That's about what I eat in an entire meal now.

These 2 things will make a huge difference. Then, slowly do other things like switching to low fat junk food. Just be careful not to overeat. An entire bag of baked potato chips is still horrible for your diet.

I'm single, live alone and work long hours. That's a perfect combination for not making a healthy dinner. After a 12 hour day, the last thing I want to do is dirty dishes and pots (I don't have a dishwasher), so it's easy to make something quick like mac 'n' cheese or Spaghetti-o's. I always keep a good selection of TV dinners (Healthy Choice or something similar) in the freezer for these occasions.

The real key for success was (and still is) never bringing unhealthy food into my house - ever. If it's there I will eat it. That's a fact I have excepted. Rather than relying on willpower alone, I acknowledge my weaknesses and try to work around them. Just make sure you have plenty of healthy snacks available when you get hungry. I keep things like canned fruit and applesauce on hand. My favorite dessert is No Pudge fat free brownie mix with fat free or low fat yogurt. It's really good. Many fruits are filled with sugars, so you can overeat fruit too. This was a mistake I made in the beginning. I thought "how can I possibly eat too much of something that's good for me?". Just about anything in excess is bad.

The main goal (for me at least) was to change my eating habits, not go on a diet. Occasionally I track my food intake on Fitday to keep me on track. Even after making huge strides in your diet, you would be amazed how much room for improvement is left. Also, allow yourself some cheat meals occasionally.

You didn't mention your current physical condition, but equally as important as changing your diet is joining a gym or taking up a physical hobby. Joining a gym was probably the best thing I ever did in my life. Plus, when I bust my ass at the gym I don't want to cancel all that work by eating junk food.
posted by bda1972 at 10:05 PM on October 28, 2006

The reason you have a hard time eating junk food in moderation is that junk food is scientifically designed to be hard to eat in moderation. Junk food companies want you to keep pressing the lever that releases the brightly colored food pellets.

Would it help you to think about rearing up in your little maze, baring your little rodent teeth and squeaking defiance at their clean white coats? Because you know they're due to electrify the floor some day soon.
posted by flabdablet at 3:04 AM on October 29, 2006

Thanks for evetybody's input. To answer some questions:

I don't eat fast food, my problem really is just with potato chips and soda.
I *do* eat healthy food otherwise -- organic fruit and veggies, and my wife is an outstanding cook.
I actually don't really enjoy eating potato chips -- they make my mouth feel funny and don't taste very good. I am assming that, as someone mentioned above, there's some kind of emotional comfort attached to them. my theory at this point is as follows: my family, when I was a kid, was pretty tempestuous at times, and my retreat was to read books in my bedroom alone. I remember at some point I started saving my paper route money to buy snacks -- M&Ms and the like, and I'd eat them while reading. Great literature, bad food.
Anyhow, I almost never eat junk food with other people. It's always alone, at the end of the day, when I'm having "me" time - reading, watching the Daily Show, etc. That's why i want to find some kind of halthy replacement -- because I doubt I'll be able to stop snakcing altogether.
posted by eustacescrubb at 4:53 AM on October 29, 2006

I don't know if they have fresh edamame in the supermarkets near you. Many veggie snacks are somewhat unsatisfying, yet edamame has plenty of protein and some unsaturated fat, which leaves you satisfied but which is healthier than chips etc. If you are snacking at home, the easy thing is to just not bring the chips into the home, but do bring in some healthy alternatives. As for soda, don't ever drink anything but diet. Especially avoid sodas with high fructose corn syrup.
posted by caddis at 7:06 AM on October 29, 2006

I've found I have a hard time doing some things in moderation. Junk food is one of those things. Cold turkey worked well for me. After going a few weeks/months without eating refined carbs, it is amazing how your tastes change. Steamed Brussels sprouts are now one of my favorite foods.

My current favorite snack is high-fiber whole wheat toast with home-made hummus. Ummmmmmmmm!!!!
posted by Bort at 7:27 AM on October 29, 2006

Seeds like sunflower and pumpkin might be a possible replacement. I find they have a similar texture to crisps, and they're good sources of protein, phosphorous etc.
posted by paduasoy at 1:15 PM on October 29, 2006

Cherry tomatoes are also a great pig-out snack... very sweet and juicy.
posted by Operation Afterglow at 3:24 PM on October 29, 2006