Wow - Does THIS Explain Our Food Network Addictions?

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Pam M
Pam M Member Posts: 2,196
in Head and Neck Cancer #1
Just read a blurb about Roger Ebert - famous film critic and H&N survivor (didn't realize Siskel died of brain cancer). He talks of obsession with foodin the hospial (when he could no longer eat), especially root beer.

His wife says, turns out he was not getting enough nutrition in his tube, and the food fantasies were his starving brain's effort to get a person with no appetite to be hungry and eat. Wow.

I know that I was by no means starving during treatment, but, like many, I never had the level of interest in cooking shows that I had during treatment - even when I had no appetite at all. AND, oddly enough, root beer was the first soft drink I craved (and could drink), even though it was not my favorite.

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  • soccerfreaks
    soccerfreaks Member Posts: 2,788 Member
    #2
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    Pam
    I call it food porn and I mean that in the kindest way. Of interest to your point, perhaps, I was not so wrapped up in these shows while I was on the PEG tube, although that is when it began. I have favorites. I like Bourdain (No Reservations) even though that is not so much a food show...it provides inspiration and I like the entire tone of that one. I don't like Zimmerman and eating weird crap, maybe because it will do me no good. I like the challenge shows, some of them, Chopped more than Iron Chef, and I care little at all for the daily fillers where ladies and gents try to convince us they are making good stuff by saying 'mmmm' and 'wow' all the time. I like the large-breasted spike-haired lady who cooks in a restaurant, probably as much for the occasional cleavage as for the lettuce leavage.

    There are some that I can't stand or understand: why would I want to watch a show about some fat dude trying to eat more than most humans eat in a week? Why would I want to watch a show about people being put out in the desert and having to drag food back to some ghost town to make some amazing meal? I'm not gonna do that! I'm not interested in ladies coming up with five ingredient fixes; I'm not interested in ladies telling me how their kids or their precious hubbies are going to just love this or that; I am not interested in two people on TV together acting like they just had sex, or are about to have sex, or are having sex during the show while we are watching the food sizzle! I never want to hear Paula Dean say "y'all" again for the rest of my life and I don't won't to hear Emiril say anything at all.

    But yeah, y'all, I understand what he was going through, this Mr. Ebert. I love my food porn when properly delivered.

    Lately, six years after diagnosis for head/neck cancer, I am eating new things of a sudden. I actually attribute some of that to food porn. How much, I don't know. I owe my wife a great deal of gratitude for continuing to try things, for continuing to listen to me crank and complain, for continuing to allow the food waste when I thought I could eat something and then couldn't; I allow her a deeper debt for continuing to hammer home that I would eat nothing if I didn't start eating something.

    And let me give myself some props for actually following through, for doing the trying, for doing the gagging and the choking and the regurgitating and the spitting and walking away disgusted without saying a cross word when I couldn't eat something, let me give myself some props for daring to go out into public to eat even things I'd never eaten before, for sitting in my dining room and listening to some moron admire me for my restraint because I wasn't eating like everyone else.

    Food porn is good.

    And my first soft drink was ginger ale.

    Good one, Pam!

    Take care,

    Joe
  • sweetblood22
    sweetblood22 Member Posts: 3,228
    #3
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    soccerfreaks said:

    Pam
    I call it food porn and I mean that in the kindest way. Of interest to your point, perhaps, I was not so wrapped up in these shows while I was on the PEG tube, although that is when it began. I have favorites. I like Bourdain (No Reservations) even though that is not so much a food show...it provides inspiration and I like the entire tone of that one. I don't like Zimmerman and eating weird crap, maybe because it will do me no good. I like the challenge shows, some of them, Chopped more than Iron Chef, and I care little at all for the daily fillers where ladies and gents try to convince us they are making good stuff by saying 'mmmm' and 'wow' all the time. I like the large-breasted spike-haired lady who cooks in a restaurant, probably as much for the occasional cleavage as for the lettuce leavage.

    There are some that I can't stand or understand: why would I want to watch a show about some fat dude trying to eat more than most humans eat in a week? Why would I want to watch a show about people being put out in the desert and having to drag food back to some ghost town to make some amazing meal? I'm not gonna do that! I'm not interested in ladies coming up with five ingredient fixes; I'm not interested in ladies telling me how their kids or their precious hubbies are going to just love this or that; I am not interested in two people on TV together acting like they just had sex, or are about to have sex, or are having sex during the show while we are watching the food sizzle! I never want to hear Paula Dean say "y'all" again for the rest of my life and I don't won't to hear Emiril say anything at all.

    But yeah, y'all, I understand what he was going through, this Mr. Ebert. I love my food porn when properly delivered.

    Lately, six years after diagnosis for head/neck cancer, I am eating new things of a sudden. I actually attribute some of that to food porn. How much, I don't know. I owe my wife a great deal of gratitude for continuing to try things, for continuing to listen to me crank and complain, for continuing to allow the food waste when I thought I could eat something and then couldn't; I allow her a deeper debt for continuing to hammer home that I would eat nothing if I didn't start eating something.

    And let me give myself some props for actually following through, for doing the trying, for doing the gagging and the choking and the regurgitating and the spitting and walking away disgusted without saying a cross word when I couldn't eat something, let me give myself some props for daring to go out into public to eat even things I'd never eaten before, for sitting in my dining room and listening to some moron admire me for my restraint because I wasn't eating like everyone else.

    Food porn is good.

    And my first soft drink was ginger ale.

    Good one, Pam!

    Take care,

    Joe

    Pretty much, I could have
    Pretty much, I could have exactly written what Joe wrote, except, I love Emeril Lagasse. You are thinking of Anne Burrell, btw. I love her, she is awesome.

    I could not watch Food Network while on my PEG tube. You really did not want to talk about food anywhere around me when I couldn't eat. I would want to kill you. I know John, started the thing about me punching someone in the throat, but this time I am serious. I was miserable. Once I could eat a little bit of normal food, which wasn't for over a year, I became re-food obsessed. Since I was a serious foodie/chowhound before cancer.


    Joe, I am a Bourdain fan, have you read his books? I read Kitchen Confidential years ago, and just bought Medium Raw.
  • Skiffin16
    Skiffin16 Member Posts: 8,305 Member
    #4
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    Fooood Porn....
    I was one of those that DVR'd the Food CHannel shows for late when I could eat again, LOL....

    Paula's Best BBQ Places in the South

    Rachel Ray....

    Anthony

    Emril

    Man Against Food....

    LOL, I recorded a ton of them....

    Obsessed, whose obsessed...

    ~JG
  • Hondo
    Hondo Member Posts: 6,636 Member
    #5
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    Skiffin16 said:

    Fooood Porn....
    I was one of those that DVR'd the Food CHannel shows for late when I could eat again, LOL....

    Paula's Best BBQ Places in the South

    Rachel Ray....

    Anthony

    Emril

    Man Against Food....

    LOL, I recorded a ton of them....

    Obsessed, whose obsessed...

    ~JG

    Just the Opposite
    For some reason I lost all appetite and did not want to eat or look at food. It still smelled good but as soon as I put something in my mouth I spit it back out and that was it, I would not try anything after that. My wife caregiver had a very hard time getting me to eat anything as I did not have a PEG tube, it was all by mouth.

    Hondo
  • Skiffin16
    Skiffin16 Member Posts: 8,305 Member
    #6
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    Hondo said:

    Just the Opposite
    For some reason I lost all appetite and did not want to eat or look at food. It still smelled good but as soon as I put something in my mouth I spit it back out and that was it, I would not try anything after that. My wife caregiver had a very hard time getting me to eat anything as I did not have a PEG tube, it was all by mouth.

    Hondo

    EAT
    LOL, who said anything about eating...like you and Dawn, I couldn't even drool.
  • soccerfreaks
    soccerfreaks Member Posts: 2,788 Member
    #7
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    Skiffin16 said:

    EAT
    LOL, who said anything about eating...like you and Dawn, I couldn't even drool.

    Ditto
    And thus "food porn": you can look but you can't touch hahahah.

    Take care,

    Joe
  • soccerfreaks
    soccerfreaks Member Posts: 2,788 Member
    #8
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    sweetblood22 said:

    Pretty much, I could have
    Pretty much, I could have exactly written what Joe wrote, except, I love Emeril Lagasse. You are thinking of Anne Burrell, btw. I love her, she is awesome.

    I could not watch Food Network while on my PEG tube. You really did not want to talk about food anywhere around me when I couldn't eat. I would want to kill you. I know John, started the thing about me punching someone in the throat, but this time I am serious. I was miserable. Once I could eat a little bit of normal food, which wasn't for over a year, I became re-food obsessed. Since I was a serious foodie/chowhound before cancer.


    Joe, I am a Bourdain fan, have you read his books? I read Kitchen Confidential years ago, and just bought Medium Raw.

    No Reservations
    I have read them both, Dawn, and enjoyed each of them, although he clearly has risen to a new status when writing the second (some serious name-dropping :)).

    To be honest, I now scour through Good Housekeeping and some of those other 'ladies' magazines, including one for diabetics (mom in law) to look for new menus too! I am waiting for a magazine to have an explosive headline that shouts "PUT ON WEIGHT FAST AND ENJOY DOING IT!" :)

    Take care,

    Joe
  • staceya
    staceya Member Posts: 720
    #9
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    soccerfreaks said:

    Ditto
    And thus "food porn": you can look but you can't touch hahahah.

    Take care,

    Joe

    Root beer and Food shows and Bob Ross
    It is really funny, I only watched food shows during treatment, when I would be in the recliner with my nightly IV dinner. I did not have a peg (which I should have) and the IV was about it for nutrition for a few weeks. Also I never used to like root beer and it certainly was one of the few drinks I was able to tolerate at first..
    Now I am off of food TV and back to books on tape except for Bob Ross. His voice instantly relieves whatever stress I have, I wouldn't care what he was painting!

    Bob Ross Video


    and also, if you are interested here is a relatively inappropriate parody of Bob Ross.
    It is actually for a good cause related to stopping ethnic cleansing if you get to the end.

    parody

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