Eat More!

"You're so skinny. Don't you eat? You need to eat more."

But I think I eat more than you do? Look at the tiny portions of food on your plate.

"I wish I have a high metabolism like you do."

I've had countless conversations like this throughout my life. I'm eating normally, most of the time. Ice cream, pizza, cookies, potato chips, chocolate milk, processed foods... What can I do if my body is the way it is?

I am an anti-foodie.

People are right in a way. I don't eat much. While I sometimes enjoy eating and sometimes eat more than they do, if it was possible for me to live without food, I wouldn't eat at all.

Eating takes up too much time of the day. What!? Laugh away, but I have a habit of eating too slow. People have also often commented that that's probably the reason I don't gain weight.

Whether eating at home or out with friends, I am always the last to finish a meal. Often, I try to avoid eating out with guy friends. They eat too fast. I feel so guilty when they are waiting for me to finish eating. When I do have to eat out, I try to choose a meal with less meat or less quantity. Meat makes me chew even slower. (Also, the strands of meat getting stuck between my teeth is unbearable.) On the rare occasions I did not finish last, mum's cooking was probably too delicious.

There are times in life when there is not enough money, not enough food. During those times, I don't enjoy eating because eating needs money. I have lived on processed foods because they are simpler and cheaper.

It's not that I don't like Japanese food, or Korean, or Thai... Any foreign cuisine my friends are always keen to try. It's just that it is way less inexpensive to opt for the local Chinese noodles, or even the economic Malay nasi lemak. Foods that are affordable, but still tasty. It is sufficient for me to eat enough to be able to stand on my feet.

I eat to live.

I do experience new food in foreign countries.

Strangely, despite my lack of enthusiasm in food, I have tried many kinds of new food in the different countries I have been to. This is mostly due to blindly following fellow colleagues who usually have food on their travel agenda. Venturing out to find a local market or eatery to taste Hong Kongese wantan noodles, Vietnamese pho, and Japanese ramen, to name but a few. Many have established that one of the pleasures of travel is trying new food and culinary experiences. I admit that food is an important part of travel for place identity, as well as understanding cultures.

With that said, I will continue trying to eat faster so that I can eat more while I am out there in the world.

P.S. Before publishing this, I remembered I had an old amateur blog and revisited. When I was 14, I wrote in my profile that I love eating. It's weird how I'm always contradicting myself.