As the Dow Plunges, Comfort Foodies Corner the (Grocery) Market
Written by Rivka
Analyzing car manufacturers who can't run their companies may be the barometer du jour of how much your bank account will continue to shrink. But if you want to know how bad it really is, look at what we're eating and what's in store for our waistlines. Let's put it this way: Something is definitely expanding.
As we head into the holiday season, there are economic indications that we need more New Year's resolutions for change than just swearing in Barack Obama.
Here's a quick snapshot: Kraft Foods has been summoned to the Dow altar to replace the banished AIG, Campbell Soup is at a 52-week high, food stores are easily meeting profit expectations, and luxury chocolate sales soared 20% in October, all set to finish out the year stronger.
We have officially entered another era where the Comfort Foodie rules, and there are consequences-pounds and pounds of consequences.
While the Dow may have lost more than 40% of its body fat, we're in danger of adding that much to ours. That's the way it was in 1929, 1987, and post 9/11. Every major crisis in our modern history has made us raid the fridge, and it looks like this market crash is no different.
An American Psychological Association survey reports that during stressful times, most Americans overeat (http://www.apa.org/releases/women-stress1008.html). Nearly 50% of Americans overeat or eat unhealthy food to manage stress, while 20% drink alcohol and another 10% smoke. Smaller percentages shop or gamble.
The Comfort Foodies win. We like to eat. Makes sense, self-comfort comes from childhood, and we didn't smoke and drink then. So move over Asian fusion and raspberry coulis, restaurants will be hauling out and dusting off the deep fryers again, just like they did in 1987.
The term comfort food first appeared in 1977, in The Washington Post Magazine, during the last round of terrorist attacks and gas lines, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The reference was to grits. But the term became famous, and kicked off a generation of chic diner food menus, in the wake of the 1987 stock market crash.
It's a global recession, so naturally comfort food is on the rise across the globe. And no one tracks chocolate sales as lovingly as the British. The upscale English grocery store Selfridge's reported a 20% increase in luxury chocolate from September to October. They're even selling new, gourmet-packaged Credit Crunch Chocolate.
Chocolate has particular panache when things are bad. The stock market crash of 1929 was a chocolate windfall. The Great Depression was called the Hungry Thirties by thriving chocolatiers, when many of today's big names were established, including Cadbury, Nestle, Hershey, and Marathon (now Snickers.) They profited while all other luxury spending plummeted.
The last American crisis, the terrorist attacks of 9/11, proved to have the same effect as the stock market crashes, according to an International Communications Research survey (http://www.icrsurvey.com/Study.aspx?f=AICR_0802.html). In November 2001, 10% of Americans had gained weight since 9/11, and 20%, roughly 56 million people, were eating more comfort foods. One year later, the same survey found 43% hadn't lost any of the weight they gained stress-eating after 9/11.
There is no doubt that comfort food is a wonderful ritual if it's a one-night stand. It's like rereading an old favorite book, watching a movie you've seen a hundred times, or wearing a worn out sweatshirt two sizes too big, too disheveled to leave the house. Do it every once in a while. But that same feel-good sweatshirt becomes a sign of depression if it's on for more than a weekend.
It's Christmastime. The pig-out starting whistle has been blown. Holidays make it worse because everyone, not just the stress monkeys, becomes a Comfort Foodie.
So is there an answer? Of course! Enjoy it for now, deal with it in 2009. Times are hard enough without the guilt. If I want to eat one more bon bon, I don't want to hear about it.
-Rivka
P.S. For those who are planners (already have purchased their decade-at-a-glance for 2009 and want to mark the date for the kabash on pigging out), here is:
7 STEP PLAN TO CHASE AWAY THE COMFORT FOODIE DEMON (it does work):
1. Erase All Judgment. You've Got Great Survival Instincts. Do not judge yourself for your eating habits. If you get on the snarf-guilt cycle, you'll make yourself twice as stressed out, and the problem will get worse. Besides, it's not fair. It's not only perfectly reasonable that the stress is getting to you and changing your behavior, it shows you have good survival instincts. By any standard, it is a scary time, and your mind and body are looking for a way to find safety. The people who are wandering around right now feeling la-di-da are like the zebra in the herd about to be pounced by the lion. So, deep breath, and even if you can't quite put the slice of cheesecake back in the cafeteria line yet, tell yourself: This makes sense. I'm a well-tuned animal, all my instincts are in great shape. (No small thing after living in the insular techno age for so long.)
2. Stop Stepping on the Scale. Once you're in a snarf cycle, do not step on the scale again until you have a grip on it. A grip means three weeks of new habits, which we'll get to. Just don't. Stepping on that scale is the equivalent of going online and checking your mutual fund value every day right now if you have no intention of selling it. Put the scale at the back of the closet. If that doesn't work, throw it out. It will induce the guilt and guilt is the number one killer of a new habit.
3. Invoke Sense of Humor. This step is probably the most important. When you're at a deli paying for that pint of Ben and Jerry's, make a joke to checkout counter clerk or someone in line about the economy. If shame steps in and you sit quietly embarrassed about your Ben and Jerry's, you'll trigger the guilt, and then it's the slippery slope into feeling bad. Humor is a shame killer and that's what you want. Secret eating is alienating. That's not to say that you can't enjoy shutting the world out and curling up with a good book and your treat, but just admit to someone you're doing it, with a laugh. It's connective, and in these times we need to know we're connected, our feelings aren't hopeless. Even when you get further down on this list and are trying to instill new habits, you may find yourself veering in to that 7-11 for junk food or cigarettes. So, you did. Sense of humor about it. Ultimately, it won't make a difference, it won't ruin everything. You're aware now, and one day you won't want to veer into the 7-11. That's what your after, not beating yourself up for the times you do.
4. Start New Physical Hobby. If you belong to a gym, quit if you're not going. Hey, it will save you money. You can always join again later. Whatever your routine is that you're not doing, stop doing it officially. First effect: Guilt about not doing it is gone. Second effect: You leave the door open to something new. And that's the next step. Choose a new physical activity. If you've never done yoga or pilates, start. If you've wanted to take a dance class, do it. Rollerblading, the neighborhood softball team, racquet ball, tennis, whatever moves you. Make time. Or if money is really tight and you can't spend any money on exercise, then take up running, or hiking if you live in an area conducive to that. Remember, though, any money you spend on exercise is less than you're spending on junk food, or too much booze, or Xanax, for that matter. (If I had actually been smart enough to create Normal, the anti-anxiety drug in my novel, I'd be saying "what Recession?" right now.)
A recession is the perfect time to start something new because it is a time of change. This happens to be a motto of business strategists for a reason. Small businesses tend to have great opportunity in a recession, many people go back to school for advanced degrees. Use this theory for your personal well being and you may find it leads other places.
But start today. Even if it simply means taking a one-mile walk. Any new physical habit raises body awareness, and induces abstract thinking time, during which ideas are born.
5. Drink More Water. You Pick the Amount. Start right after your first exercise today. Count how many containers you drink a day, but instead of trying to live up to the standard goal of 8 or 10, just increase the amount you drink. Everyone is different, so standard goals don't always make sense, and can set you off feeling like you're failing. New habits should be successful and tailored to you. Do drink two glasses of water in the morning, and a glass for every cup of coffee and glass of wine you drink.
6. Channel Your Anxiety and Obsession. When a very high-end massage therapist in Malibu convinced me to quit smoking in one hour-after decades of trying to quit-she said something so simple I couldn't believe it. I guess that's how I knew it was true: "Your need to smoke is just intense energy. Redirect it. Stop squashing it with smoke. Obsess about something else."
I started yoga the next morning. That was 5 years ago and I haven't had a cigarette since. Yoga, by the way, is an excellent way to release anxious energy, incite the imagination, and make you want healthy food. It just works. I started organizing things in my life that I would have never gotten to otherwise: Boxes of photos now in albums, a clean office and files, purging things from my closets. You can laugh at Feng Shui, but clear energy does wonders. Weeding out clutter is instant gratification, too, and takes focus. Very therapeutic. And you get something done, which never happens if you watch the stock market news all day long, or stay up online until your eyes are square, trying to figure out what shoe will drop-or be thrown!-next (sorry, no way I could resist that).
7. Do a 3-Month Yeast Cleanse Diet. The step-by-step instructions are right there on the right, last item listed under the Rivka Tadjer (You might have to scroll up. In any case it's on the home page: rivkatadjer.com.) Under the apprenticeship of a nutritionist and Latin botanical aficionado, I cracked the code of my physical being after 42 years. The result is I lost 20 pounds I will never gain back, and I have a formidable immune system.
Every person is different, in terms of how much weight you'll lose, but you will lose weight. Honestly, it may be the best way to channel your anxiety and obsession. It's no mystery that people like to count calories, carbs, fat-it's like raking a zen sand garden. Channel your worry into your health. You'll feel better in two weeks, have a new project, and renewed energy to think of creative ways of thriving in this economy. This isn't a pitch. The yeast cleanse plan is free. Everything you need can be found in any vitamin section of a health food store, and the rest is just a matter of ritual and changing some of the groceries you buy.
Good luck. Please write back about your experiences with it.