Oh bacon…. smoky, salty, crispy, greasy and delectable… but so bad?! I have a love/hate relationship with it. Growing up, bacon was neutral, something to slather maple syrup over on weekend mornings when my dad lovingly made me bunny-eared pancakes with juicy blueberry eyes. It was in my teens when I latched onto a new identity as a vegetarian and gave it up. Then it was gross, inhumane, unhealthy; a perfect symbol of cultural excess and environmental destruction. I craved it for more than 10 years without ever giving in. I was proud of my control, my morals, and my unwavering dedication to my values.
Then something happened to me. I entered what I like to call the “lightening up” stage of my life, where tightly-defined rules gave way to something more dynamic and ‘context’ relevant. I started to make exceptions. I began to occasionally eat “bad foods” when I didn’t want to miss out on something culturally significant or connecting to someone dear to me. I’d eat my grandma’s borscht made with beef stock, or have the chicken smothered in mole verde on that trip to Mexico City. It felt right in those moments, but was followed by a sense of guilt or “selling out” that I couldn’t quite rectify.
The summer before I began my education at Bastyr University, I started dating my next-door neighbour: a French-Canadian musician from Montreal. He just didn’t get the “English” approach to food and health. For him, food was food. You ate it because it was good. You didn’t eat too much and you enjoyed a lot of different things, but most of all you never felt guilty about it. There was so much pressure to be ‘healthy’ in Vancouver. Where was the pleasure? It was curious and refreshing to hear such a seemingly non-obsessive relationship to food.
It was with him that my relationship with bacon changed. Every weekend (and occasional weekday mornings when we skived off work for a few hours) we would walk to the store and buy bacon. It wasn’t free range, grass fed, hormone or nitrate free. It was generic Safeway brand or sometimes as an extra treat, “Lazy Maple” with the maple “flavour” built right in. I waited for the voices in my head to tell me this was wrong. “I can’t believe you are going to eat this! All that saturated fat and toxic nitrates! What about the environment!?” But they never came. After we ate I expected the queasiness of guilt and fatty meat to set in. I waited to feel disgusting and full. But I never did. I felt energetic and light. I felt nourished.
Bacon gained immense importance in our relationship. It was a common bond. It had Rock Star status. It represented precious shared moments of hedonistic pleasure when climate change and heart disease didn’t matter. We would even close text messages with “bacon,” like “hugs and kisses,” only much more delicious.
On a trip to Montreal with the neighbour, I set aside my judgments and was surprised at how amazing I felt eating the ridiculously rich local delicacy – Poutine: French fries with fresh cheese curds slathered in gravy. Not exactly ‘heart smart’ fare. It was everywhere, and came in countless varieties. Sometimes it was topped with mounds of Montreal-style smoked meat. Of course there was one with bacon. I ate more than my usual year’s share of meat and heavy foods on that trip but I felt great. Even my pants were looser than when I stepped off the plane.
But when I came to study at Bastyr amidst the vegans and the socially responsible, I worried that someone would find out about my bacon habit. I felt like a fraud as a nutrition student. On lonely mornings when I turned to bacon for a dose of home, I felt heavy and full, my stomach churning from the salty grease, my thighs expanding from the fat. Something was definitely missing.
We learned about that something in my Psychology of Nourishment class. Eating a meal is more than just eating food. It is the entire experience of the meal that nourishes us: the care and attention that went into making it, the social nourishment of being with friends and family, our emotional state when we eat and the meaning we ascribe to the food. It makes sense.
Times with the neighbour nourished me on a level beyond the nutritional value of bacon. There was nowhere to rush to. I was relaxed and where I wanted to be. I ate with incredible sensual awareness, noting every detail of the crisp ruffled edges of the bacon. I savored every bite. I felt completely satisfied. I ate the whole experience: my mood, the company, the atmosphere, and most importantly the connection the meal created between us.
Eating provides us with more than just nutrients. Eating with awareness and curiosity can give us a hint about how the entire eating experience affects us and what we need to feel nourished and fulfilled, such as a sexy French-Canadian neighbour at the table.
Although my pancakes are rarely bunny-eared these days, I have returned to positive eating experiences. The neighbour has since moved back to Montreal, but he and bacon will always have a special place in my heart.
