A dear friend came through town a few months back and told me that she’d been discussing my recommendations with her clever boyfriend.  He spent some time mulling them over, and this is what he said: “Processed food is a menace to satiety.”

Did you ever think about the fact that you might be able to eat your way through several pounds of potatoes in the form of potato chips, but not in the form of baked potatoes?  How many pounds of baked potatoes do you think you could eat?  Don’t forget about the butter; after all, potato chips are usually fried.

My husband and a bear-sized buddy of his used to joke that the best way to eat Thin Mint Cookies was to open the cellophane and slide an entire sleeve right into your mouth all at once.  Yeh, well, that’s how you get to be as big as a bear.

What’s the record number of bowls of breakfast cereal — just name your brand — that you’ve ever eaten at one sitting?  Three?  Four?  How about a whole box?  Could you eat that many bowls of whole grains?  I really doubt it.

Why?  Because real food fills our bellies.  Real food tells us, “You’re full now.  Stop eating.”  Processed food-like products don’t.  They bypass the exquisitely sensitive systems that were designed to keep our bodies working right.  They hijack our appetites.  We can’t tell when we’re full.  We keep eating.

So when you’re hungry, it’s not a good idea to eat something that’s been processed into a form that is no longer recognized by your body as real food.  Hold on just a sec, I need to go get something to eat……OK, I’m back.  I chose a couple of slices of swiss cheese, and a bunch of leftover asparagus from last night.  And guess what?  My belly is happy — I’m not hungry anymore!

I decided against the cauliflower & cheese soup, the ripe avocados, and the turkey breast.  Those would also have been good choices, but everything doesn’t need to be eaten all at once.  Real food is satisfying.