A Bowl of Mushrooms, or weird cravings.

Content warning: Post contains discussion of slight food related/eating disorder type issues.

My relationship with food is… It’s Complicated.

Food is my Drug, Let’s be honest. Half of what I eat is all about the euphoric high I get from having taste explosion experiences with anything tasty that I eat. I am autistic and in my case that’s why I have tastebuds in severe overdrive and a sensory neural system that is always turned up to 11. When something as common as Food evokes that sort of response, it’s a setup for serious hangups, issues, associations, complexes and neuroses about and around Food. It’s not something one can avoid, so I have to find ways to deal with Food and Eating more healthfully.

To try to get round that, and to eat a bit better, I’ve managed to work out a system where if something is moderately healthy, and I suddenly crave it, I eat it. If something is refined-sugary or exceedingly caloric, and I still crave it, I eat a little of it. That way I don’t ever feel deprived and binge. (in theory. Pizza is still a bit of a problem. ehehehehe)

A lot of people eat this way, they call it “Mindful Eating” or something. I try not to feel guilty about what I eat, but just to eat some of whatever my body thinks it needs, and not too much of any one thing, and to stop eating once I am almost full.
The theory is that body often knows what it needs if you get good at listening. Most sugar cravings are actually me being thirsty, for example.

One time I bought armloads of squash and cooked it all in a single week.

Another time it was bananas. I must have been short for potassium, because I was strolling along with my grocery list and cart when my nose caught a whiff of bananas and wrenched me around in the supermarket aisle and dragged me to the curved fruits section of the Produce Corner, screaming inside my head, “THAT! WE NEED THAT! BUY US THOSE SO WE CAN EAT THEM.”

Whenever I am working my poor sickly muscles back through phys therapy and into health, I get a serious craving for certain types of meat. Dark meat Chicken, beef, shrimp, anything with oils. I think my body needs that to rebuild. So I eat it.


Which leads to Mushrooms.

What the heel is in mushrooms? Is it potassium? Some vitamin? Why can’t I get enough mushrooms? Portabello, if that makes any difference.