Lunch solutions

[Guest guest]

Leah wrote:

> Yesterday to avoid the show-n-tell rountine during lunch I

> decided to go home and make a salad. Once I got home, I had the

> bright idea of eating the salad out on the swing. The view

> was so much better than in the glass office building that I

> work in.

 

If it helps any, I have figured out an interesting reason as to why

it bothers us so much when people want to look at our food and talk

about it at work.

To get health insurance, I teach English to foreigners.

It is almost impossible to eat any kind of food at all in a place

where a foreigner can see you because they will come up to you and

say, preferably when you have a mouth full of food, " Enjoy " , or " Bon

Appetit " , or " Good Digestion " , or any number of other weirdisms. It

is very annoying.

then I started to think about why it is annoying.

The fact of the matter is, if you look deeply enough into what most of

us who work in offices have conveniently forgotten, or conveniently

ignore, *we are not supposed to eat in front of other people who are

not eating*. That is not polite.

In American culture, in working culture, we have evolved a system

whereby, if we are to be polite, we politely *ignore* that someone is

eating, and simply say, " Oh! I see you are busy! " or " I see you are

eating " , and walk away without saying anything else.

If someone says, " Boy! that smells good! " or " Hey! That looks

delicious! " , if we are polite, we ought to offer them some " would you

like some? " , and they should say " No, thanks! " , and we should say " no,

please! I have more than enough! " and they should say " No, no! No

thanks! " and GO AWAY!

(actually, I figured all of this out because of a question my Japanese

room-mate asked me a while back: She saw a co-worker eating a

sandwich, and looked long and hard (and perhaps longingly, or maybe

just very curiously) at the sandwich -- in Japan, staring is not

impolite! She asked her co-worker what she was eating, and the

co-worker explained, and then said, " Would you like some? " at which

point, my room-mate, who had her own lunch there in her lap, took half

of the poor woman's sandwich! Of course! the woman gave her a look!

Fortunately, my room-mate was feeling curious about Americans that day

and came home and asked me what had happened. I had to think for a

minute, but, of course, deep down, I knew-- it's just that NO ONE does

such a thing!)

So how does this pertain?

We already know the rules of our culture, so much so that they are so

internalized that we may not realize what is going on when they are

violated.

 

Our culture has evolved to accomodate business necessities such as

eating at one's desk. Normally, if we eat something others can

recognize (a hamburger or French Fries, or a sandwich from home, or

" regular looking " leftovers) no one will say a word, other than if it

smells really good.

 

So, when people break the rules, we are distinctly uncomfortable,

because *it is not polite to talk about someone else's food* BECAUSE

*it is not polite to eat in front of someone who is not eating*.

 

Now, if you are eating something that is composed primarily of cut-up

vegetables mixed up with a " dressing " of some sort, that should

qualify as a salad, wouldn't you think? If someone says what are you

eating, when you are clearly eating a salad, then one of two things

has happened: (1) they are brain-dead, or (2) you've been running

around telling them how you don't eat this and you don't eat that, and

you only eat raw foods, and you have brought this blessing of having

to talk about the food you are eating upon yourself.

 

If I suspect that a student might stumble into my space while I am

eating, I will go to the teachers' room to eat. No one there will ask

me a word about what I am eating -- because it is obviously food.

If, on the other hand, as someone I know does, I sat in the teachers'

room and made a point of how what I was eating was leftovers from last

night's raw food repast in which I combined nuts and vegetables and

spices to make a sausage substitute which is high in protein, low in

calories, and, incidentally, 100% raw food, because I am a 100% raw

foodist, then I would be more likely to have people wondering about my

salad, or that pattie, or whatever.

 

Preaching can be fun, but I find it pretty useless in the workplace.

Someone who used to work with me found out that I am a nutritionist

and started asking me questions about what I eat. I answered him

truthfully. Ever after, when I saw him, he had questions.

Fortunately, he did not blab to other people (or, if he did, they

understood that he was a whacko). Another person, who has been

diagnosed with diabetes and is bound and determined to " beat the

system " comes up to me periodically and asks me if he can have ice

cream if he doesn't eat all day (or other similar duh questions). It

is my fault,and I deal with it, because I mentioned, when I got my

certification, that I was now a certified nutritionist. My bad.

 

The best way I know, when you go raw, is to just do it, and not talk

about it. If people ask what you are eating, if it is salad, you say

salad. If it is a " veggie-burger " you say " veggie-burger " . If it is

nut-milk, you say " shake " . What I mean is, if you speak " English " ,

instead of " raw-food " , they won't look at everything you eat as if it

was just shipped in from Mars. I had " nutburgers " (okay, it was a the

sausage recipe from Gabriel Cousens' book, but it looked like

" burgers " ) on top of grated zucchini the other day, and someone asked

what I was eating. I told them it was a veggie burger on top of salad.

They asked if I was a vegetarian, I said yes, and they went away. I

did not see the need to say " why, this is a raw nut sausage made with

raw hazelnuts and spices, and it is on top of raw zucchini with spices

and a raw avocado-onion dressing " . That is more information than they

need. I worked for IBM, where every morsel of information was

available only on a " need to know " basis. That is a valuable idea

that I walked away with.

 

I do not eat at the yoga school, but if we are talking about food, I

will say that I do raw food. Why? someone might need to know.

 

I hope this helps in some way.

Margaret