Why I Hate To Eat In Public
Eating solid food is a commitment for me. That is why I love Mezzacello and that Rick is such a great and imaginative chef. This is why I hate to eat in public.
In Manhattan with Dean and Daniel
In Columbus with Rick
At Mezzacello, dreaming and laying down
I have to trade time for food (I must lay flat and lay still for a minimum of 30 minutes - each time I eat) I can’t eat foods that are too dry as I don’t have an esophagus with peristalsis and if food gets caught at my trachea where my stomach meets my throat I can easily choke or suffocate. Oh, and I cannot eat processed food or sugar.
No FAST Food, Just FRESH Food
No convenient fast food for me. Sugar catastrophically escalates my insulin response and my blood sugar drops to dangerous levels and I pass out and loose the ability to process most nutrients for three days.
I MUST eat fresh, healthy food. Thus Mezzacello has become my lifeline in this world. Now we have turned our urban farm into a learning lab.
Make More Food
We grow a lot of food. We store as much as I can. I have a wonderful, creative, empathetic, and patient husband who is a fantastic cook and I eat like a king.
It hasn't been easy though. First we had to learn how to grow food and maximize yields. Then we had to learn how to preserve it and store it properly.
Food is a frenemy to my body. I can eat almost everything. But everything has a cost.
The Reality of the 30 Minute Rule
I still have very real scars from my surgery. Not all of them are physical. I am very serious about fresh food - because I have to be.
But I know — without a doubt — the true cost of food. I have lived it. I am living it.
That photo above is my body just after I lost my esophagus. Those scars are where they took my left lower lung out and that tube is how I ate. I understand and appreciate that food is a LUXURY.
None of this left me special or unscathed. I am happy to be alive, even if it means food is complicated. That 30 minute lay flat rule means I avoid eating out and I often watch people in restaurants eat their food.
Occasionally I will eat in public and then go out to a car or lay on a bench or in a doorway to digest and reflect. Sometimes people give me money. I guess they think I am a homeless guy in a fedora, dress shirt, and a bow tie. Who knows? It's a crazy world.
