Memory eating

Lawrence Toppman

When you have a cold that lingers and wipes out your taste buds, do you ever start to eat from memory? By that I mean, do you eat things you can't taste but wish you could taste, and would be enjoying if you could sense their flavor?

I made that mistake over the weekend. My body told me I wanted a chocolate cookie with peanut butter filling. I had no hope of savoring it on the way down. So while I ate it (and a couple more), I tried to remember what it was like when I could taste it -- and I almost convinced myself I did.

On another occasion, I had peanut butter smeared all over a piece of honey wheat bread, one of my favorite treats. Some part of my brain tried to resurrect the heady peanut aroma. But in my heart, I knew the only nuttiness at work here was my own. That didn't stop me from further experiments, however.

Result: I put on a pound over the weekend. It's not time to panic, but time to behave like a sensible human being. As long as I can't taste what's going down, my sugar intake shouldn't be going up!