James Rohasa's blog

“Last hurricane,” he said, “the water was four feet deep around the house. That piling has paid for itself.” We clambered into a weathered skiff with a kind of broad shelf abaft the middle. Using a small version of oyster tongs called “nip­pers” to pole the boat, Mr. Llewellyn stood at the bow. Periodically he clicked the nippers and drew up a cluster of blackened oysters that he cast on the shelf for sorting. He clenched a cigar in his teeth. “Two years ago,” he said, “there wasn’t an oyster in this bayou. But I seeded it with old shells and beer cans and worn-out tires. All an oyster needs is something to cling to and it’ll grow just fine.”

“Is it a particular species?” I asked.

“Well, we call them mud oysters.”

Silence.

“I know,” he sighed. “It’s not a very ele­gant name.”

As we drifted through the meandering waterway bracketed by harsh, high grass, Mr. lewellyn kept swinging up clumps of oysters. One huge oyster broke open and I sampled it. Plump but bland. “That size,” he said, “they’re only fit for frying. Besides, all the rain has probably taken away the salty taste. They’re delicate, you know. The salinity of the water, the temperature, even the tides affect the way they look and taste.”

Later, in Mr. Llewellyn’s dining room, we wolfed down fresh oysters with a fantasy of sauces, followed by fried oysters, grits, and coffee. “I lived away from here for 14 years,” Mr. Llewellyn said, “and the thing I missed most was the taste of those mud oysters.”

The next day with my friend Eddie Hicks of Irvington, I visited the lonely tip of Point aux Pins, Point of Pines. Gallberry and sas­safras bushes lined the dirt road. “The gall-berries come out in winter,” Eddie said. “As they ferment, the robins eat them and get dead drunk. You can almost pick them off the branches. Well, you take those robins and fry the breasts in grease and mix them with rice and bake it all into a robin jambalaya, and you got the best eatin’ you’ll ever know.”

At Point aux Pins the water was the hue of clouded gunmetal, and a wind with the faint scent of iodine whipped through the coarse grass.

“My granddaddy used to come down here most every day and shoot himself a couple of ducks and catch a sack of oysters,” Eddie said. “Those waters out there used to be black with ducks. The limit on redheads was ten a day. Now the state’ll put you in jail if you shoot more than one. But I didn’t see a single redhead last season.”

We turned away from the marshy shore. To the west, on the horizon, loomed a vast refinery. Not far from it a paper mill spewed roiling smoke into the lowering sky. And once at dusk, on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, I was walking along the white sands at Point Clear. Overhead, swallows darted; small waves lapped nervously on the beach. Suddenly, I saw him—a blue heron sprawled on the sand like a flawed and dirty sapphire. His graceful body still supple, no wound visible. Dead of what? Dead of filth.

Yes, industry is bringing jobs to Alabama. What’s more, today using a payday loan helps people who want to start their own business. But the machines sing a threnody for a way of life that, just maybe, was idyllic. While the moon is bright, Watch them jugs a fillin’ in the pale moonlight.

How do you head off between-meal eating sprees? Binges usually begin with moods such as boredom and anger. When you feel the need to eat a between-meal snack, turn your attention to something else. Wait at least ten minutes before you eat. If you do eat, choose a food that is not one of your favourites. Take the smallest possible quantity of it. Above all, take the binge in your stride and resume your self-manage­ment programme afterwards.

Eating three full meals a day can head off between-meal binges, by reducing the “psychological caloric deEcit” that leads many people to feel that they owe themselves extra calories because they passed up food at mealtimes.

Be sure to stay on schedule every day. Have breakfast and dinner at the same time at weekends as on workdays. Train yourself to think of food only when you choose to. As the weeks progress, your appetite won’t be as strong between meals.

Another valuable technique is to learn to break associations between eating and other activities. Ray illus­trates the problem. Although very weight-conscious, he has an embar­rassing paunch. Why? He has train­ed himself to eat while working.

When he arrives at his office, his first stop is the coffee machine. He glances at the newspaper as he sips his coffee, and eats a pastry as he opens his mail. He has a mountain of paperwork, so he takes lunch at his desk. His paperwork actually creates an urge to eat.

Cynthia has trained herself to eat whenever the television comes on—by having dinner in front of the set. Before going to bed she turns the television on again—and suddenly gets that empty feeling. So her late-night viewing is almost always coupled with a snack.

Millions of us condition ourselves this way. We programme ourselves to act in certain ways when we re­peat behaviour in the same sequence. For this builds the “habit strength” of a chain of actions. If you have al­lowed certain places, activities or people to stimulate your urge to eat, then merely going to certain spots, doing certain things or being with certain people can whet your appe­tite. Reading and watching televis­ion are two of the most common activities associated with unguarded eating. Even reading the news­paper at breakfast can lead to the urge to eat when you read later in the day.

To free yourself from these urges, deprogramme yourself by making eating a pure experience, one that is not associated with any other events. Determine which places, activities and people tend to be present when these eating problems arise. Then go through your home, car and place of work on a thorough search for food, transferring all food to the kitchen.

Finally, eat only in speci­fied places. In the kitchen or dining-room, sit at your own place and use your own special place mat. Disso­ciate eating from all activities other than socializing with your family and friends.

Now that you know the essentials, the next move is yours. Plan your programme. Then follow through to the best of your ability.

The effort you expend in manag­ing your urge to eat can help you control other areas of your life. When these dividends are added to the major benefit—reduction in the risks of being overweight—the re­ward for weight control is surely enough to justify year-round effort.

Simple strategy for keeping control of your eating urges

HOW MANY times have you gone out for dinner promis­ing yourself that you would eat neither bread nor dessert, only to eat two helpings of each? How often have you stuffed yourself with junk foods you neither wanted nor en­joyed? If you’re like most chronic dieters, you have had these and simi­lar experiences time and again.

As a result, perhaps you have followed the “yo-yo cycle” of peri­odically gaining and losing from five to 4o pounds. Or perhaps you manage to hover a little above your desired weight by expending bound­less energy and worry.

It needn’t be that way. By learn­ing what’s behind your urge to eat and how to control it, you can get thin and stay thin. Many of the fol­lowing techniques for managing that urge to eat were developed for the Weight Watchers Personal Action Plan. Members who follow­ed the plan improved their average weekly weight losses by 24 per cent.

Why do we crave food ? Most of our eating patterns are learnt. True hunger is motivated by physical need for food. Appetite, on the other hand, appears when our thoughts reach out for food. Desire for food without true hunger is one response in a long chain of responses that leads to problem eating. A typi­cal sequence runs like this :

You feel restless with nothing to do, so you pick up a novel. You read for a while but your boredom deep­ens. You look for something to dis­tract you and find the cocktail bis­cuit bowl on a table. Vowing to have three and no more, you let each biscuit melt in your mouth. Now you’re hooked and eat till the bowl is empty.

Notice that you made one choice after another, each bringing you closer to problem eating. Every eat­ing experience can be analysed as a similar series of choice points at which two actions—one construc­tive, the other destructive—are possible.

Two strategies will help you take the constructive route. First, don’t buy foods that you have trouble re­sisting, you’d better save for led light bulbs. If you buy these foods for others, keep them out of sight. Sec­ond, keep busy. Tasks that are inter­esting and challenging can distract you from food. Work on a hobby or activity that occupies your attention enjoyably.

It helps to keep daily records of exactly when you feel the urge to eat, how strong it is, and whether you succumb to it. Sandra, a house­wife who is two and a half stone overweight, claimed to have no con­trol at all : “I eat from morning till night.” But after she kept precise records for several days, she found that she did very well until 3pm. “Then I feel hungry and have a snack. By four o’clock I’m no longer hungry, but I keep eating almost until dinnertime.”

Given these observations, Sandra was able to zero in on some eating management planning. She could plan specific, low-calorie snacks for three o’clock and work out some interesting activities that would keep her busy and away from food for the rest of the afternoon.

People eat on very different schedules. But whether you eat most of your food at night or are a person who nibbles between meals, to achieve freedom from persistent urges to eat you must eat only at specified hours. Make it a hard-and-fast rule to eat three full, planned meals at the same times daily. This will condition your body to expect food only at certain times.