Food is more than fuel

Food is fuel for your body. You’ver heard that before right?

It’s a line I would often use when I worked in a hospital with malnourished patients. I don’t think it was very helpful. I would say 99% of the patients already knew this and wished they could eat more. There were other factors which were stopping them from eating enough. Maybe it was nausea from their chemotherapy. Or a lack of appetite due to constipation. It could have been the emotional stress they were feeling from being in hospital which meant food was the last thing on their mind. It was my job to identify what these roadblocks were and how they could be managed. If I simply said “remember, food is fuel” and left, nothing would change.
I tell this story to highlight how the phrase “food is fuel” is way too simplistic. Yes, food is the vessel for getting nutrients and energy into our body. But if we only eat food for this reason then we miss out on the many other experiences food can bring. When I think of happy memories, they often involve food. Baking and (badly) decorating gingerbread men at Christmas time. Eating hot chips loaded with chicken salt at the beach. Cooking sausages over the campfire growing up. Thinking of these now just makes me feel warm and happy.