Slow Eating

Slow eating. 

I am not referring to the Slow Food movement, which was started in the 1980s to counteract the loss of local food cultures and traditions, including preserving, restoring, and promoting heritage stock from apples to turkeys. 

No, this is a movement of one, founded (out of necessity) in our home. I'm the one.

A week ago, meaning to have a healthy snack after a superb walk, I eschewed the easy carbs of cookies and crackers, and made myself a small bowl of popcorn. About seven bites in, I heard a crack. 

I had bit a kernel.

I spit out what I had in my mouth. No tooth bits, no anything. I touched my finger in my mouth. Okay, no blood either. So must have just been a very loud kernel, right?

Two more small portions of popcorn and I realized something just didn't feel right. I went to the bathroom and opened my mouth wide. Everything looked okay. But when I put my index finger on the tooth in the area that felt different, I was able to move the tooth. 

That's never a good sign.

I saw my dentist the next day. He made the very same comment: never a good sign to be able to wiggle a tooth, April. One x-ray later and we had the verdict: I had broken a tooth. Given that I had no pain, no bleeding, and no sensitivity to hot or cold, my dentist concluded that the tooth was dead and this had just been waiting to happen.

Because of the years of treatment and variety of drugs I have had for my myeloma, I have to go to an oral surgeon for any extraction. Fortunately, we have a superb one in town who has worked on my mouth off and on since 2005. While I was still in the dentist chair, my dentist had called and made an appointment for the extraction. It was a week later. In the meantime, he said, watch how you eat.

"Watch how you eat" translates into slowing way down and eating slowly. Really, really slowly.

As I just shared in a letter to my friend Katrina (spoiler alert, Katrina!), eating slowly has been a revelation. First, because I am chewing my food so slowly, I am paying more attention to what it tastes like and what its texture is. Second, because I am eating slowly, I am aware of the feeling of fullness when it arrives. All those nutritionists and dietitians are right: your brain gets the message of fullness from the stomach after you have eaten more than enough, so many people tend to overeat (a little, a lot) because of the delay in the messaging. Having to eat more slowly made me aware that I felt fuller on smaller portions.

Who knew?

The third revelation is a combination of an old memory and embarrassment that it took a broken tooth to drive the point home. I eat fast. Period. I "knew" that, but I had tucked that knowledge away. The old memory is a long-ago lunch with my then boss and mentor at my law school job back in Portland. Don treated me to lunch at a nearby cafe. We talked, our food came, and we started eating. Don looked at me after a few minutes and said, more or less, "Slow down, April! You're not a starving college student anymore!" I turned bright red and we both laughed.

That's the memory, one that makes me smile because I thought the world of Don. (Still do.) The embarrassment is that it is has been 40+ years since we had that conversation, and here I am (or was up until last week) still eating quickly.

The tooth came out this morning in one gentle twist as it was undeniably and reliably dead (and had a very shallow root to boot). I am on soft foods only today and limited in what I may eat for the next few days. 

After that, my goal is to not return to my hectic eating pace in the days and months to come. There is always enough food; I just need to slow down and savor it.

The Slow Eating Movement. You read it here first, my friends.