Most of the people I know have more than enough to eat. Most have more than they CAN eat, at least in a single day. Further, most of the people I know are interested or actively working on losing weight. About six weeks ago, I wrote about fasting. We had heard of the 5:2 diet (sometimes called the Fast Diet) and we have been trying it. The basic idea is eat in the usual way 5 days a week but eat only 500 calories two days a week, 600 if you are a man. That is not a complete fast but on the Monday and Thursday we try this deal, those calories taste very, very good.
The book we have used the most is The Fast Diet by Mosley and Spencer but there are many other books on the subject, many of them free or very low cost. There are, of course, variations on the 5:2 diet, such as just one day of fasting if you want the health and brain benefits but are already at a low weight and don't want or should not go lower. That is the 6:1 diet. We got new insight and inspiration from Caitlin Collin's "The Fast Diet Magic Book". It isn't really magic but sensible and intelligent advice on fasting and good eating.
Ever since I attended a talk on nutrition and watched a TED talk on human evolution, human brain development and cooking, I have been reading "Catching Fire" by Richard Wrangham. Just as" Marriage: a History" by Stephanie Coontz really delves into the logic, uses and history of marriage, "Catching" really delves into what cooking does to our bodies, our daily schedules and our sex lives. Not that cooking makes for more time in bed directly but in the way that cooking makes things happen in human groups, families and societies. Cooking food gives the body more calories in less time, enabling longer and more extensive hunts. Wrangham points out that raw food can just be popped into the mouth with little outward signs. But cooking requires fire and time and that means that hungry men can beg or steal or appropriate food that is being cooked. So, there is speculation that she cooks and he guards to the betterment of both.
We have been inspired by the Collins book to try longer and more severe fasts. We have learned that exercising while in a fast, can be more effective for losing weight that usual. While walking during a fast in a state of strong hunger (which I am learning to tolerate and sometimes even enjoy and take pride in), I can see how a couple of young hungry human males might be motivated to go over to the single or divorced lady's fire and steal a steak or take one of her pancakes. Wrangham quotes evidence that who beds whom has maybe not be a big deal in early and primitive societies but who feeds whom and who offers food to whom has been a very big deal. In some hunter-gatherer societies now, if either of us takes food from the other and eats it, we are BINGO! married. Food and cooking are a big deal.
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