Restore one’s dietary instinct

Rather than re-learning, we should speak of “counter-learning”, because most of the automatisms acquired from early childhood work in reverse to what they would be in the context of an original diet.

This inversion comes from the fact that the flavors remain relatively fixed with the prepared foods, whereas with the original foods, they change systematically as needed. In the absence of variations in taste, learning the dietary instinct leads to a deliberate search for pleasure from mental representations, while with original foods, whose smell and flavor are largely unpredictable, sensory experiences structure a position of questioning and obedience to alliesthesic mechanisms.

In the culinary context, the child thus learns to arbitrarily choose his food; each time he pursues a pleasure, his waiting is rewarded with the expected pleasure, so that he conditions himself day after day to this mode of operation. In natural conditions, the deliberate search for pleasure leads on the contrary to a loss of pleasure, since we only rarely come across the food which responds most favorably to the need: thus a position made of questioning is acquired, of realism, and openness to body language.

In practice, relearning the dietary instinct involves the development of a better listening capacity of the body to gradually lead to spontaneous obedience to sensory signals. It also includes awareness of possible innate motivations made to guide the dietary approach (the real feeling of hunger), which it can relate to the example of congeners and environmental data (learning where the resources are and how to access it, which products to avoid, etc.). The problem is therefore that we did not acquire the right reflexes in early childhood, since we were not confronted with original foods or with an environment capable of providing them. The child who has only eaten porridge, cookies and chocolate, obviously does not react as he should when he is offered a raw product.

However, the innate remains largely present, as the following example shows: My father filmed me the day I was made to taste my first orange, at maybe six months, after a period of breastfeeding and then porridge. (brand: Paidol, wheat and milk guaranteed). I am seen first making a huge face, then a few seconds later claiming the next quarter of orange with a forceful wave of my hand, and continuing the same merry-go-round until a moment when I am interested in another. thing. So it only took my baby brain a few moments to recognize the benefits associated with an unknown flavor, although it was decoded a priori as repellent. Then after a certain number of quarters, the attraction spontaneously disappeared. It seems that the innate predominated over the acquired, after a time of integration of taste perception, a fraction of a second undoubtedly necessary for the processing of sensory information by cerebral circuits more complex than those of perception. immediate. This says a lot about the power of the innate, which ultimately won out over the acquired and led to the appropriate behavior.

Many other observations have convinced me that there is indeed a dietary instinct in humans. However, this instinct should not be understood as a rigid set of stereotyped reactions, but as a set of tendencies capable of modulating and organizing themselves according to the constraints of the environment. The individual who lives in a tropical country will not develop the same reflexes as if he were in contact with products available in a temperate zone. This adaptability of instinctive tendencies is not unlimited: the question is whether the innate tendencies which are structured in contact with denatured foods (cooked, seasoned, mixed, plus non-original foods such as milk or selected plants, cereals etc.), are still able to ensure correct functioning of the senses in the face of raw food. Is defective structuring reversible or not?

Experience shows that poor learning is partly reversible, even quite quickly: an unknown fruit that is presented to an inveterate culivore is quickly recognized as useful or inappropriate, most often from the first attempt. That is to say that the alliesthesic mechanisms are able without too many errors to indicate the correct doses, even if they were poorly integrated in infancy, and broken day by day for years. Criteria for verifying their correct functioning include digestive comfort and positive health effects, including regulation of inflammatory tendency, which immediately signals even small imbalances.

The difficulty is not so much in the functioning of sensory perception and its alliesthesic variations, but above all in the attention paid to these indications. In the culinary context, the menu is chosen without necessarily taking into account the real attractions of the body. In addition, the attractions do not correspond to the real nutritional value of the food. The smells and flavors of the prepared foods thwart the sensory mechanisms, so that the habit sets in to choose foods arbitrarily, based on a memory of pleasure or inconvenience, rather than from a real need. from the body. The same applies to regulating the quantity of each food consumed: there is hardly ever a clear change from the pleasant to the unpleasant, many products are mixed, the senses are unable to ensure precise regulation for each food. In addition, the individual was deprived from an early age of experiences of alliesthesic negativation which would have structured the good reflexes, hence the illusion that by continuing to eat he could prolong the pleasure.

As we can see in seasoned instincts, the reflex to stop consuming the food that has become unpleasant to the taste becomes automatic, it occurs from the first variations, no doubt thanks to the conditioning due to the small discomforts that followed the passing. of the taste stop. This is a learning process, which can be accelerated by the voluntary attention paid to the indications of the senses. The brain seems to better integrate the “punishments” and the “rewards” constituted by the feelings of discomfort or well-being following overcoming or respecting the taste guidance.

In a majority of beginner instincts, the main difficulty arises in the sensations of fullness. We often observe a total confusion between the feeling of having a full, even distended stomach, and the feeling of satisfaction indicating that the need has been covered. There is also a frequent confusion between genuine hunger, corresponding to a real need for food, and digestive discomfort linked to an overload, a sign that, on the contrary, one should not take food. Some people systematically seek their satisfaction in volumetric fullness (filling the stomach to the point of no longer being able), even though this apparent satisfaction each time results in digestive heaviness, hiccups, flatulence, and an exacerbation of the inflammatory tendency. (unstoppable sign of nutritional overload).

It is therefore necessary to integrate a whole series of reflexes, for lack of having done so at the time of weaning, for which the following rules can be applied:

A (re)learning process must also take place at the level of smell. Obedience to olfactory signals is undoubtedly the source of the greatest resistance to respecting natural laws. Animals, particularly mammals, choose their food based on olfactory perception, but relying on one’s nose represents, for us acculturated beings, a kind of renunciation of free will. Instead of being able to eat whatever we decide, we must consult our bodies and obey them: this shatters the entire illusion of freedom and the power of the ego. This explains the great difficulty most instinctual eaters have in choosing their food by smell, the contempt this otherwise basic rule receives from all sorts of detractors, and even the sometimes visceral aggression of certain individuals with a particularly strong ego.

It is impossible to know which food will best meet the body’s needs other than through smell, which reveals its true requirements. Precise olfactory selection offers numerous advantages: the food that best meets the need is also the one with the most pleasant flavor, the deepest satisfaction, and requires less of it, thus being the most energy-efficient for digestion. One rarely encounters a “bright spot” (a level of flavor corresponding to a true match between the food, the digestive capacity, and the body’s needs) when choosing foods randomly. Whereas selection by smell guarantees maximum pleasure for minimal energy (and financial!) cost. It also seems to give the body the opportunity to trigger the secretion of the appropriate digestive enzymes.

The (re)learning process unfolds as follows:

1. Be wary of decoding perceived sensations, knowing that they could be deciphered differently if the learning of instinct had been done under natural conditions.
2. Learn to instantly obey taste changes (alliesthesic negativations), stop or spit out food as soon as unpleasant components appear in the oral cavity.
3. Do not try new bites with the idea of ​​regaining the level of pleasure that has disappeared (would lead to permanent overload).
4. Distinguish the volumetric effect (distended stomach) from the real organic satisfaction (well-being).
5. Distinguish organic satisfaction from psychological satisfaction, linked to the vagaries of education and past experiences.
6. Learn to stop as soon as the feeling of stomach satisfaction arises, not that of a filling, but that of fullness, which can sometimes occur after a minimal ration.
7. Do not wait for a stop which would manifest itself both at the taste level and at the level of fullness, but stop as soon as one of the two signals occurs.
8. Consciously make the link between the level of flavor felt, as well as the sufficiently prompt stopping, and the feeling of well-being obtained.

Another very important point: each fruit, vegetable, or other natural product has its own scale of smell and flavor. Some fruits are extremely fragrant, while others barely smell. However, we must not take into account the intensity of the attraction, but the level of attraction between the two extremes specific to each product. After a certain period of rehabilitation, spotting occurs spontaneously. At first, it requires conscious action, knowing that a cabbage that the body craves will smell less than a melon, a cherry, a strawberry, etc. anyway. This disparity results in part from the artificial selection of fruits as fragrant or tasty as possible, which ends up distorting the natural scale of identification.

It is therefore also necessary to relearn the scales of olfactory and gustatory attraction of raw foods that can be obtained. Sometimes, the odors remain very weak: three techniques then make it possible to better perceive them:

1. Scrape the surface of the fruit or vegetable with a clean knife (to promote the emission of aromatic molecules, while avoiding any mixture of odors)
2. Heat the product by blowing gently on the surface (to promote the vaporization of aromatic substances)
3. Breathe out quite violently through the nose (in a handkerchief for example), so as to clear the sinuses and release the olfactory stain (upper area of ​​the nasal cavities, where the olfactory cells are gathered)
4. Smell the product, focusing on the perception and analysis of the odor
5. Inhale and exhale a bit like the animal does to better stimulate the olfactory cells.

These different processes may seem tedious at first, but with sufficient exercise they become spontaneous. The gain in pleasure they provide is a reward that makes them integrate positively (we can see that the level of pleasure at meals is much higher). The loss of pleasure when they are neglected constitutes a kind of punishment which makes one realize “organically” of their importance. The gain in well-being, for example the correct regulation of the inflammatory tendency and its corollary = absence of pain in the event of any lesion, ensures for its part a mental awareness.

Many failures due to discouragement, poor results, lack of pleasure, are due solely to the neglect that many beginners believe they can oppose to these principles, which are ultimately nothing more than a clear formulation of behavior. natural food.