Unconscious Cooking

On the I Can Make you Thin program that I watched yesterday... one of the points that Paul McKenna tried to reference repeatedly was that people should eat consciously. This meant that they should pay close attention to how the food actually tasted (this makes sense as many fast food meals are strategically designed to trick our senses into thinking they taste better than they actually do) and to eat very slowly and deliberately. By "eating consciously" you are less likely to overeat and more likely to hear the signals from your body telling you that you've had enough. I totally buy into this. I also enjoy meals a whole lot more when I put my knife and fork down and take the time to enjoy the setting and the company... anyway...

Today I was going about my business. I ate a dinner of leftovers... it was ok. I had a rough day and I was still feeling hungry so I decided to make a yummy desert. I pulled out a bowl, started with plain low-fat yogurt and the remaining canned pumpkin from my fridge. I added some honey and a handful of dark chocolate chips. To finish it off I grabbed a small spice container that I thought had been left on the counter from making my oatmeal this morning - I thought it was pumpkin pie spice. Yummy cinamon, allspice, and cloves... perfect. I was wrong. It was the garlic powder that I left on the counter after making popcorn last night. Damn it! I had a beautiful bowl of pumpkin yogurt with honey and chocolate chips and I sprinkled garlic powder all over it. In an attempt to salvage the desert I found the pumpkin pie spice, added some and mixed it all up hoping that the garlic wouldn't be that noticeable. That didn't work. Bummer.

Desert yogurt number one got dumped in the trash while I toasted some bananas, honey, and a few more chocolate chips for desert yogurt number two. I left the garlic powder out of this version.

So much for unconscious eating... beware of unconscious cooking!