Have you ever thought about the fact that you might be able to eat your way through several pounds of potato chips, but not the same weight of baked potatoes? How many pounds of baked potatoes do you think you could actually eat in one sitting? A friend of mine came for a visit a while back, and reported to me that she had been discussing my recommendations with her clever boyfriend. This is how he summed it up: “Processed food is a menace to satiety.” 

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. Yes, well, that’s probably 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 once? Three? Four? How about a whole boxful? Could you eat that many bowls of whole-grain bulgur wheat? I really doubt it.

Why? Because real food fills your belly. Real food tells you when you’re full. It tells you that it’s time to stop eating. Processed, food-like products do nothing of the sort. There’s a reason you can eat a big bag of candy at the movies, and then go out for dinner right afterward. Processed items hijack your appetite and bypass the exquisitely sensitive neural and endocrine systems that were designed to keep your body working right. They hijack your appetite so you can’t tell you’re full. So you keep eating.

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 a snack……O.K., I’m back now. I chose a spoonful of hummus and a bunch of leftover asparagus from last night. And guess what? I’m not hungry anymore!

I decided against the cauliflower & cheese soup, the ripe avocado, the tomato, the turkey breast. Those would also have been good choices, of course, but I don’t need to eat everything all at once. Real food is satisfying.