You guys, not playing around with the TMI tag today. Not to be read while eating!
NTKOG #67: The kind of eating disordered girl who decides to cheat her body out of a few calories by the weirdest method possible. To wit, the “chew up your food then spit it in a bucket” diet.
I am: quite fond of eating. The whole process. Including, y’know, the swallowing step.
I am not: the main character in a Lifetime Movie.
The Scene: My apartment. Ballsy though I am, I couldn’t quite bring myself to trying this one in public, so I picked up a slice of pizza and a piece of carrot cake at the mediocre pizzeria down the street.
None of this food actually made it into my stomach.
For context, The Ex is actually the one who gave me the “chew it up and spit it in a bucket” diet idea. Over the many years we were together, periodically he would jolt up in bed during pillow talk moments and crow, with a just-cured-cancer awe in his voice: “Instead of bulimia, why don’t people just not swallow?! Why don’t they just chew up the food and spit it in a bucket?” My answer: “Uh, ’cause then someone would have to clean the bucket?” But the idea always compelled me, so why not give it a shot.
Once I got the food home, there were two big questions: 1) What am I going to spit the food into?; and 2) omg seriously what the fuck?! Although there wasn’t much to do about the second question, I solved the first by spitting the thoroughly chewed mouthfuls into the paper plate that the pizza came on. (No, I won’t gross you out with pictures. Have you ever vommed pizza? It looked like that.)
I rather expected that the experience of chewing up food and spitting it out — and keeping it in plain sight! — would trigger a for-realsies bulimish response and send me puking immediately, but it honestly wasn’t as gross as I expected. I chewed every mouthful basically down to paste — much more thoroughly than I’d chew a normal slice — and tried to focus on extracting and enjoying as much flavor as possible. And the actual chewing bits were nice, but spitting the bites up on the plate? Kind of reminded me of vomiting, though with less velocity.
I think it’s because when we’re normally chewing food, the high-profile flavors hit your tongue immediately (pepperoni! spicy sauce! gooeyness of cheese!), and in the normal bite-swallow-repeat process, you don’t have time to fully experience the more understated flavors (like how a thick, cardboardy crust has a bland sort of cornmeal sweetness to it). And when do we actually experience those flavors in full? When we’re vomiting, of course.
That, and slick, slippery mouthfuls of pre-chewed food just sort of falling from your lips? Um, yeah. The comparison is pretty close to begin with anyway.
The carrot cake was even weirder, ’cause the cake part was stale and dominated by thick, cold cream cheese frosting. There were really only a few chews in each bite, then I was left with not much to do but swirl some rapidly heating sweetened cream cheese around my tongue before sliming it out onto the plate. You guys. This was just about as attractive as it sounds.
The Verdict: What, are you friggin’ nuts?! Don’t do this. Don’t ever do this. It ruins the taste of good food, provides none of the satisfaction of swallowing and digesting, and makes you look like an absolutely crazy person. Although it is perhaps the least invasive form of psychotically disordered eating, um, maybe let’s all agree to just actually eat food like normal people and maybe not freak out if we go a few calories over?
Sorry, The Ex, to put a damper on your diet scheme, which is brilliant on paper. But all this ended up accomplishing was filling my Scottish-Jewish heart with guilt for wasting $5 on food I didn’t eat, and forcing me to take out my trash in the middle of the day. ’cause, I mean, ugh.
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Guys, even without gross-out “after” pictures of the process, can we all agree this is totes a TMI Thursday? Keep up the appetite-suppressin’ bloggy goodness by stopping by LiLu‘s awesome blog and checking out her TMI Thursday archives.
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i am one hundred percent sure i saw this on an episode of intervention.
This is possibly one of the most disgusting things i’ve heard. Yuck! Why would people DO this???
It wasn’t actually that gross, but certainly it was over the odds in grossness considering how pointless it was. Certainly I would never advocate anyone doing it!
Plus isn’t it really unsatisfying? Chewing and chewing and then…no swallowing?! It’s like masturbating with no release. Tantric eating?
the swallowing is always the most important part.
You ate a whole piece of pizza that way? And carrot cake? Blech! And TMI.
TMI, Dear, TMI. Only the EX could have thought this up. This diet has NOT been featured in any of major magazine. You might send it off to “Women’s World” (my favorite) but expect a rejection letter. It’s been 365 days since the EX and I dined together on spaghetti and pastrami. Perhaps that’s a good thing. TMI. TMI.
In all seriousness, this is the weirdest disorder EVER. I think eating hair makes more sense.
Oh man, no love for my pre-Thanksgiving diet plan! I was trying to help you guys!
@ohhayitskk: Dude, never heard of this “Intervention” show, but it sounds like it’s chock full of bad life decisions. I’ll definitely have to check it out…
@Sadako: TANTRIC EATING! omg. You are a genius. That gave me a case of the giggles.
@ClevelandPoet: Thank you! I was on the fence about whether to make that joke, then was like, hmmmm, blowjobs + bulimia might be an unpleasant association. But good thing it didn’t go unsaid!
@ali: I must confess, I actually didn’t get through the whole of either slice. I got bored two-thirds of the way through the pizza and threw out the rest. And after a few non-bites of carrot cake, I just gave in and actually ate it. No sense letting cake go to waste!
@Mom: If only you were going out with The Ex this year! You’d have yet another thing to drunkenly chide him for!
@LiLu: Hair-eating, eh? Correct me if I’m wrong, but are you asking for a challenge?!
Chide is such a fun word. Dear, it was a little more complicated than that. I had just faced the realization that it would be Grandma’s last Thanksgiving (which it was). A couple of Dirty Martinis and — oops — truth serum. I said what I really thought: “Make a commitment or regret it for the rest of your life” (the EX–not you, dear). You’re too much fun!
I was eating lunch as I read this.
I’m not lying.
That’s all I have the strength to comment right now.
I was just eating lunch when I read this too . . . but I swallowed! ack.
I hadn’t said, but I normally check this blog at lunchtime (local time in Scotland) too!
Yeah I don’t get this at all… I am eating soup for lunch right now… and I thought about trying it…. but it is pretty much physically impossible for me to get an ounce of pleasure by putting hot soup into my mouth and immediately spitting it out. I can’t believe people do this!
I actually read an article once, a long time ago, about a couple of celebrities that stayed thin this way. I think it was Diana Ross? I don’t know. Sadako has it right up there…tantric eating.
I think the oddest thing about this experiment (and maybe I’m outing myself as a weirdo with this) is that it sounds like you do ingest oil, since it’s a liquid, salt, and sugar, since they dissolve. It sounds like you probably end up with little in your stomach (obvi – kinda the point) except the least healthy components of the meal.
Eeeeeww, good point. So my lunch yesterday = pepperoni oil and saliva-liquefied cream cheese… Um, this makes me all the happier about ingesting real, solid, swallowable food for Tgiving tomorrow.
Oh how pointless! Swallow, baby swallow.
haaaa. this is hilarious. and gross. and i’m frankly a little relieved that it, uh, provides no actual enjoyment, because like the Ex, i oddly *can* sort of see the appeal of this on paper. happily, i now do not have to try it myself :-)
Your blog continues to be hysterical. Thanks for many good laughs.
OMG you tried my spittoon diet idea!!! What a perfectly apt TMI Thanksgiving Thursday!!!
Alas, it turns out I am NOT the meanest genius. Glad you tried it once so we all don’t have to. Do you think it’s primarily the disposal problem, or that too much of the pleasure of eating is in swallowing? (It seems to me that a paper plate sitting in front of you is not the best we could hope for. If I try it, I’m going to find some kind of vase-shaped chamberpot that I can’t see the of contents of. Of which I can’t see the contents.)
Also, about the amount of chewing: I was surprised that you chewed the bites for longer than you would if swallowing. I would think you’d do the opposite: bite into the nice warm cheesy pizza, then spit it out fast and go onto the next nice bite.
But I still think it makes at least as much sense as bulimia. It’s more awkward while eating, but spitting has gotta be way less unpleasant than vomiting, and it doesn’t damage your stomach or whatever.
I think you might be onto something with the less chewing bit. My theory was, why not stretch out the flavor as long as possible? But clearly that didn’t work. Plus, as Muscles pointed out, chewing a ton only ensures that I absorb maximum fat, oil, sugar and salt.
I guess if I were ever crazy enough to try this again, I’d try short serial chews.
Although, for the record, at least for me, having the pre-chewed food in plain sight actually didn’t make a difference either way. I think it’s one of those things that would gross out any other living person, but doesn’t bug one as much when it’s one’s own, you know? Also, if we were to go vase-crazy, they’d have to be DISPOSABLE VASES. ’cause lookin’ at it’s one thing, but no way would I want to clean out the ABC food receptacle.
@ClevelandPoet @TKOG
Yea, but I don’t actually agree. The swallowing itself isn’t crucial; it’s the finishing. After that, I don’t think most guys would care what happens. Swallowing might just be more clean and convenient, or maybe… the solution is MORE SPITTOONS! Spittoons in the bedroom! Spittoons in the dining room! Muahahaha! (I just watched Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog — does it show?)
Guys do care, though! They get offended if you want to spit it out, I’ve heard. Why else would “spit or swallow” be such a cultural touchstone?!
Hmm… I have two possible answers.
1) We are a culture of titterring, immature people.
2) No appropriate spit receptacles, i.e., lack of spittoons!
I think the satisfaction part not only comes when chewing but also swallowing. Too bad people still do things like this out there. So crazy to me.
This was a Sex and the City episode; Miranda has a date in LA with an old NY friend, who has become more attractive since she last saw him. They go for steak, which he chews thoughtfully and then spits into his napkin.
Disgusting, but I did consider trying it. Thanks for trying it out for the rest of us!
Goodness, I have to admit I would never ever thought of such a thing, too funny.
At the risk of sounding trite, there are starving children near and far. You’re chewing food, and throwing it in the garbage, all for vanity. Do you think you could possibly be more wasteful?
Yeah, I do think I could possibly be much more wasteful, and easily so. Point taken about wasting food — I felt badly about it at the time. But I do also think that one little blip of wastefulness in no way negates a simple, conscientious life that is filled with trying to make the most of my resources, being good to the environment, and targeting what little money I can afford to donate into local charities with low overheads that are able to give directly to those in need.
Certainly I wouldn’t condone constant, needless squandering, but I also wouldn’t run around guilt-tripping others for the occasional spot of uncharacteristic behavior.