Portrait by Art Brewer
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Stay Hungry
March & April 2007
An excerpt from Surfing and Health by Dorian Paskowitz, M.D.
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Do you ever get hungry—truly hungry? What most people get is sort of
pica, an appetite for some special food, like hamburger and a Coke,
pizza and a beer, meatloaf and mashed potatoes.
Hunger to a wild creature is like the sea hawk being up with the first glint
of the sun, soaring high over miles of water, diving for silver-bellied
fish—risking life and limb, just for breakfast.
That's hunger.
In our distant past, hunger made mighty demands upon us. Hunger was the
master planner that made us into hunters and gatherers, herdsmen and farmers.
Today, in the midst of abundance, hunger can help us if we let it.
Real hunger is an excellent guide for what we should eat and how much we
should eat. Hunger can show us how to behave nutritionally—how to
eat—just as it directed primitive man.
Here is a simple way to understand hunger: eat nothing but fruit for one
full day. In the evening what you feel is real hunger. Don't fast. That
gives rise to something altogether different.
The following week have fruit for both breakfast and lunch, only for one
day, and see or "feel" what you'd be quite pleased to eat for
dinner. If you can have gusto for boiled spinach or boiled potatoes with only a
little salt—if you can be turned on by the thought of such a meal,
you're hungry.
Here are four distinguishing qualities of real hunger.
1. Strangely, the hungrier you are, the less you will eat.
2. The hungrier you are, the more you can be satisfied with the simplest of
foods—fruits, vegetables, peas, beans, grains.
3. Hunger is more controllable than mere appetite.
4. Hunger is singular, not versatile. You won't usually crave fatty,
salty, and sweet tastes all together.
From Surfing and Health.
Copyright 1997 by Dr. Dorian Paskowitz.
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