Hunger, the new deadly sin

If anything defines me, it's that I'm a bread lover. I'm passionate about that wonderful bread from the good bakeries and ovens in my neighborhood. My goodness, what a gift from heaven. When I go shopping, I can't help but eat it before I get home. I take a big bite and enjoy it with a pleasure I can't hide. People often look at me. It's not normal for a woman to express so freely that she enjoys eating almost orgasmically. At the table, I also don't hide the pleasure I get from eating. That I like it. That I'm hungry and I finish my plate. That I spit it out. That I ask for bread so I don't leave a single drop of that delicious sauce.

When I was younger, I was ashamed of it. I bought into that absurd belief that said to be a woman you had to have a huge appetite. Whether it was because they said, said, said, that a woman, by her physical constitution, couldn't possibly be that hungry (Virgin of the Holy Neuron, forgive them their sins) or because if she was hungry, it would be awful for her to act accordingly and leave the plate spotless. I speak in the past tense, but that still happens. Because, of course, if a woman was and is hungry and eats her portions, she runs the serious risk of ending up in the hell of fat women, fat women, women with bellies, with hips, with wobbly curves. The hell of ugly women! Because a non-normative woman can never be beautiful, where will it all end? And what is a woman if she isn't beautiful? Less. Nothing. Zero. (Virgin of Statistics and Rationality, enlighten us with your wisdom).

I'm in favor of eating well and healthily. But I'm in favor of eating. And of doing so with balance and health, not only physical, but also mental. Anyone who knows me knows I've consulted with professionals and that I make my own choices. That I've raised my children not to eat junk food. But I'm completely against demonizing food; treating food like a new religion imposed on us by making us feel guilty; turning the act of eating, or eating certain things, or even feeling hungry, into the new sins.

And of course, as with everything related to aesthetics and the body, women receive much more than men, and from all sides. The first thing we're judged and evaluated on is our physical appearance. That's why a hungry woman is looked at with strangeness. Or concern. Or discomfort. And this is the reason why so many women spend their lives talking about weight-loss diets. I myself was one of those women for a long time until I learned to find physical and mental balance. But I still find myself making excuses to deprive myself of an ensaimada every now and then, and then I promise myself I'll never justify myself again. Because I know what I'm doing to myself. Because I'm not a little girl. Because I'm in control of my body. And because eating disorders are a reality. And it pains me to see so many women struggling with their relationship with food. Feeling like they've sinned and must atone for their guilt.

We eat every day, and we eat well. With health and common sense, but above all, without guilt and with joy.