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Dinner in Tehran

  1. jodietitian says:

    That is the greatest thing I have heard in awhile….a culture that does not have a word for dieting….LOVE IT! I also, like you, totally enjoy discovering different kinds of dishes from other cultures, and also trying to recreate them… So much fun!

  2. Loved the podcast, looking forward to more! This brings me back to my bff in high school. I used to go to her house, and she was Persian. The food was always so amazing and comforting and EASY and I never realized it until you made me think about it here, but what a different environment at her home after coming from mine, so full of weight watchers points on every box, and sneaking snackwell cookies when no one was home, and learning to drink diet coke as part of puberty. Sigh. Diet culture indeed and twenty years later, not much has changed except the diet demon of the day (it was fat then, and now its a revolving door of gluten/sugar/dairy/legumes/alltheinflammatorytoxins).

    • GlenysO says:

      What a great memory! So true that not much has changed. I also grew up in a diet house, and even though I was never put on any sort of restriction, it really normalized dieting to the point that of course, eventually, I would do it too. But…at least some of us are talking about it. I think that might be different.

  3. vnp1210 says:

    I think a big problem in the west is the reliance on fast food/restaurants rather than cooking at home using good flavorful ingredients. Just the smell of fast food is enough to drive one to salivate and desire it. The pull is so strong, and then when a culture already leans towards convenience and saving time, eating fast food seems like the best option. Then it becomes difficult to break that cycle, and understand what is actually healthy for us. The first focus is on calorie restriction. Later down the line, one may come to realize that quality food in normal quantities according to our physical hunger cues are important. This was my experience too.

    I grew up in an Indian household and my mother cooked everything homemade all the time. She never used any prepackaged or frozen meals. Everything was always from scratch. I enjoyed eating and ate whatever I wanted until about age 25. I was thin and exercised and was happy with my body. The all of a sudden something changed and I put on weight. I was unhappy, and started calorie restricting and then carb restricting. Obviously without results. I long to eat the way I used to and enjoy food and not be overweight.

    • GlenysO says:

      Many of us cook at home regularly and are fat. Fat people who cook at home exist. Thin people eat fast food – they exist also. I’m not so quick to put blame on fast-food meals; I ate fast food regularly when I was much thinner. I think a big problem with our culture is to deny the natural existence of fat bodies, or that bodies can become fat naturally throughout a lifetime; the prevailing thought seems to be that they are somehow pathological and not natural. Then dieting follows, which creates even more fat bodies. I do think American food/eating culture is lacking an emphasis on joy, relaxation, shared meals, and taking time to eat. But I am a firm believer that what we eat on a day to day basis is not nearly as important as how we eat – ie having a relaxed, positive attitude toward meals, getting regular meals, having good food acceptance skills so that a variety of foods is ensured – all of this usually produces healthy (if not necessarily thin) people, which many studies have shown.

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