Food Porn
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Food Porn
I read an article on food recently and it used a term I had not heard before, but knew its meaning instantly: Food Porn.
You may know its meaning too, understanding from your own experience that food photos on Social Media, billboards or buses, magazines or TV, have an effect and when we see them we desire that chocolate fudge sundae, or the 4 inch high wedge of lasagne – no different to a sexy, curvy, buff body – we eat with our eyes and the fantasy it creates has a Pavlov’s dog[i] type of effect on us that is ‘introduced’ into our body . . .
Before seeing the picture, we didn’t need, want or desire that food – it wasn’t on our internal radar.
Beyond images, even hearing or reading words like ‘Fish and Chips’ can have an effect that leaves us salivating – tasting the salty, crunchy, warm, soft, vinegary flavours and textures without a bite passing our lips.
Even the crinkle sound of a chocolate wrapper or a corn chip pack, the pop of a Pringle lid or the sound of fizzy drink bottle being opened has an effect. Smelling freshly brewed coffee, warm baked biscuits or toasted sandwiches can create a desire where previously there seemingly was none.
Companies spend millions on Food Porn – learning how to hook our senses and make it easy for us to buy products our bodies do not need or want, but which we suddenly and absolutely desire and crave.
"Have we ever stopped to consider that our needs and wants do not come from love, but the lack of it?"
Serge Benhayon Esoteric & Exoteric Philosophy – ‘The Sayings', p 357
Removing Food Porn from our lives is not as important as discovering what in our lives has us seeking the relief Food Porn promises.
We can find ourselves using food, even healthy food, to deliver:
- Reward – something nice for all our hard work
- Comfort – the ahh feeling
- Excitement – the wow factor
- Freedom – from the dreariness of life
- Stimulation – something to wake us up and make us feel good
- Intimacy – falling in love with food
- Dullness – eating to be weighed down, to bury unwanted feelings
- Speediness – eat to speed up, to keep going
- Sensation – the crunch or creaminess, warmth or cool in the mouth
- Fulfilment – filling up emptiness
- Satisfaction – cravings met, all is well again
- Burying – emotional hurts: e.g. anxiety, worry, disappointment, depression, loneliness
No matter how tasty something is in our mouth, when these are the reasons we eat, we aren’t satisfied for long by whatever is on the plate or in the packet, no matter how delicious or indulgent.
Emotional hunger is not from our physical body and this is why physical food cannot deliver what we need, because that only comes from one source: US.
US – the us that lives in our physical body. When we drop, or let go of our connection to ourselves, the loveliness we naturally are, and the understanding that we are more precious, valuable, tender, beautiful and wise than we can ever imagine, it is easy to forget that we matter greatly and deserve the greatest tenderness from ourselves. That is when emotional eating kicks in. Instead of enjoying the feeling of warmth and fullness that comes with living and tending to our connection to ourselves, we are easily taken in by Food Porn and the relief it promises.
Starting to notice the effects of food as and when it comes into our view, smell, hearing, taste or touch, can be the beginning of breaking deeply entrenched subconscious triggers for needs we have become blind, deaf and dumb to, but nonetheless rule us as readily as food ruled Pavlov's dogs and as Food Porn rules us now.
Stopping and taking a moment to feel what our connection to ourselves is like next time we’re taken in by Food Porn, swings our focus away from food, and back onto us.
We can develop a relationship with our physical body and an undeniable wisdom. From that wisdom we know what is truly good for us, how valuable we are and what we really need in any moment. We can make us and not Food Porn, or our emotions, the master of our own selves.
A beautiful life
Serge presents how he has an awareness of life in full, with no check-out moments and a life full of joy that is available to us all should we choose.
Filed under
Food industry, Emotions, Connection, Healthy living
