Milchreis and Hyper-Palatable Foods

I didn’t tell you the whole story about the dinkel-puff binge. I’d already had a scare week ago, also on laundry day. Matt had gone to do the laundry himself, since he was taking a cab and wouldn’t need help carrying everything. Alone in the apartment, I had my usual chicken sandwich on “graham brot”- a really dense, healthy bread- with spicy mustard. When I was done, I craved something sweet. I had recently bought some yogurts in “dessert flavors”- chocolate, vanilla, etc.- as well as some individual rice puddings called “milchreis.” These also had flavors, some with a layer of chocolate pudding on the bottom. I ate one of the little yogurts- tiramisu flavored, I believe it was. But then something clicked and I couldn’t stop. I ate both rice puddings without checking the calories beforehand. I was sitting there with this pre-determined decision to eat all the rice pudding. Once it was decided, there was no going back. I ate both pudding cups and then made a frantic dash for the calculator app on my phone.

I had enough calories left for dinner and my nighttime pill snack, so I was safe. But I felt the need to confess to Matt when he came home and I told him I couldn’t buy those little dessert yogurts or puddings anymore. It would have to be plain from now on, maybe with a little honey mixed in. I thought it was the food that was the problem- something too sweet for me to handle, so just not worth eating. I thought I was in the clear. But the whole dinkel-puff incident proved me wrong. It wasn’t the type of food that time. It was an emotional trigger, not a food one.

I do feel there are certain foods that are “hyper-palatable” for me, foods designed to make you keep eating beyond satiety. There’s something about particular concoctions of sugar and fat that make me want to keep eating all of them until they are gone. Donuts, for one. Kinder-schokolade here in Germany, Hanuta as well (chocolate hazelnut wafer sandwiches that led to my demise on our last trip here). I’m learning to accept that these foods are engineered for bingeing and I just can’t handle them. But dinkel-puffs? Puffed spelt? These seem relatively harmless- no fat really, only lightly sweetened. But there’s something about the volume of them per portion that makes me drawn to them when I’m in binge-mode.

Because in this case, the binge-mode precipitated the dinkel-puffs. So one incident with some hyper-palatable puddings is one thing, but going on a mission for binge food tells me something else is going on. I recognize that the laundromat incident triggered me somehow, but I still wonder why this is happening now. Is it something about all the supermarkets being closed on Sundays that leads to a sense of deprivation and scarcity, and sends me into a binge? Or is it just that the food here is so bad in general that I feel desperate for anything that tastes good and has the number of calories on the label?

Because aside from excellent coffee and fresh bread, the food here is practically intolerable. I’ve settled on plain yogurt and fresh fruit for breakfast, though finding good fruit can be hard. Lunch is my pre-packaged deli chicken on whole-grain bread. And for dinner, we’ve finally found a good regular meal by taking fresh rotisserie chicken (from the takeout window of a nearby restaurant) and combining it with broth, sesame oil, soy sauce, scallions, broccoli, and kimchi, all from the Asian market, to make chicken soup. It’s very tricky to get everything hot enough at the same time, but we’ve managed to get it right by using 7 bowls, the kettle, and the microwave. Snacks have been muesli, toast with butter, yogurt with honey, or oat cookies (which for some unknown reason don’t trigger a binge for me).

Aside from these regular meals, I honestly shudder at the typical offerings of schnitzel and leberkäse (liver cheese?) that everyone here seems to enjoy. The day-old, flat rolls with cheese melted on them (maybe meant to represent a pizza?) are inedible, as are the prepared sandwiches at bakeries that feature only a thin slice of salami and one sharp piece of lettuce for garnish. And the worst of it has to be “curry-wurst”- chopped up hotdogs with ketchup squirted all over them, served with fries. We can’t afford the Italian restaurants that have decent food (pizza and pasta) and I can’t be bothered to guess the number of calories involved. So maybe feeling so limited in terms of choice is part of the problem and could account for why I’m having binge-scares all of a sudden.

My real concern, though, is whether it’s just the restriction of dieting that has me wound tight like a spring, just waiting to be set off into a binge. I worry that now that I’m not losing weight on my diet, I’m rebelling against it and having these mini-binges. There are so many reasons that could explain why this is happening now, but I don’t know how to address any of them. I’m trying to get on track with my routines and not push myself too much, but I’m also feeling better sometimes when I do push myself. I’ve actually socialized a little bit with and without Matt there, and I’ve been really proud of how well it went. But then on laundry day, I pushed myself again and things went awry. So finding the right balance between pushing and not pushing- that seems important. Keeping myself from feeling deprived also seems key. (Maybe adding some bulk to my lunch would help curb the snack cravings- some cole slaw or something?) But the really crucial issue seems to be coping with my anger in some way other than eating. How, I have yet to figure out.