200. A Feast for the Senses: The Psychological Art of Eating Well with Jared Gleaton

"Food is us." 

Join us as Jared shares his personal journey of weight loss and how he transformed grief into strength through mindful eating. Learn to appreciate quality over quantity!

In this episode, Adrienne Youdim interviews Jared Gleaton, a school psychologist and food critic, about the intricate relationship between psychology and food. They discuss emotional eating, mindful eating practices, and how our experiences shape our food preferences.

Who is Jared Gleaton? 

• Food critic, 
• school psychologist, and author of "A Feast for the Senses: The Psychological Art of Eating Well" 
• Expert in the intersection of psychology and food, with a personal journey of transformation through mindful eating.

What You'll Discover:

• 🍽️ The profound emotional connection we have with food and how to harness it for positive change
• 🧠 Strategies for using all five senses to enhance your food experience and overall well-being
• 💪 Insights on overcoming setbacks in your weight loss journey and embracing self-forgiveness
• 🌱 The importance of quality over quantity in food choices and how it reflects on our lives

Why This Episode Matters:
 
In a world where food is often tied to emotions and societal pressures, Jared's insights will empower you to:

• Cultivate a healthier relationship with food and yourself
• Embrace moderation and mindfulness in your eating habits
• Transform your dining experiences into moments of joy and self-discovery

🎧 Tune in now and take the first step towards redefining your relationship with food and enhancing your overall quality of life!

"I realized that food controlled me, my grief controlled me, and I was trapped in my own delusion of youth." - Jared Gleaton

• Website:  https://jaredgleatoneats.com/ 
• Instagram: @JaredGleatonEats
• Book: A Feast for the Senses, The Psychological Art of Eating Well

Ways that Dr. Adrienne Youdim Can Support You

1. Join the Monthly Free Mind-Body Workshops: Participate in engaging mind-body practices designed to help manage your stress response. Register here.
2. Sign Up for the Newsletter: Stay updated with valuable insights and resources by subscribing to the newsletter. Sign up here.
3. Freebie alert. Register for our monthly free MindBody Workshop and receive a downloadable guide on emotional labeling to help you manage your emotions effectively.

Connect with Dr. Adrienne Youdim

• Website :https://www.dradriennespeaks.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dradrienneyoudim/

Transcript

Adrienne Youdim

 Great to have you, Jared.

Jared Gleaton

Thank you so much, Adrienne. I appreciate it.

Adrienne Youdim

I'm really excited for this conversation.

Jared Gleaton

I am too. And it's going to be a fun conversation. We can go down any rabbit hole that we need to.

Adrienne Youdim

Well, I like a lot of your rabbit holes, to be honest. And I like in particular this language that you use around exploring the world of food, where psychology or exploring the intersection of psychology and food.

Jared Gleaton

Well, and that's just it. Food is us. It's within our culture. It's embedded in everything we do around the dinner table, socializing with friends. It's always there in one way or another. there's so much psychology that goes into it. All our food decisions are inspired not just by our taste buds, but our sight, our touch, our hearing, and also psychology of advertising. And if we've been trained our entire lives, the question then becomes, do you really like what you like? Or have you been conditioned to like what you like? And how deep do you wanna go into that?

Adrienne Youdim

Well, I like that you use the word inspire, because I think a lot of times when we talk about the psychology of food, or we talk about the emotion around food, it gets a bum rap. There's kind of this negative association between food and emotion or emotional eating for that matter. So can you talk a little bit about the positive view that you hold in terms of bringing the emotional component or even just acknowledging that there is this emotional component to our food and to our eating?

Jared Gleaton

There is a massive emotional component, so I can share a story. In 2016, I lost my father. I was really close to my father. He's someone that I grew up with. He was my teacher. He was my father. He was my brother. He was my friend. At that time, I was 376 pounds. Instead of using food as a coping mechanism, I used it as a strength to lose 176 pounds in a year. And how I did that was instead of eating a tremendous amount of food, I would stop, slowly chew my food and really analyze the flavor profiles, where it hit on my tongue. What are the textures that are going on there? And I tried to shed myself of what I thought I liked and to rediscover my world through food.

Adrienne Youdim

You talk a lot about using your senses and that's the tagline in your book. Dive into that a little bit. Help us understand a little bit more this concept of using all of your senses in terms of your food experience.

Jared Gleaton

If you think about it, the senses, our touch, everything goes into every bite of food, whether we think about it or we don't think about it. How many people don't like something because of texture? Or your sense of smell, your olfactory senses are closely tied to your taste buds. And so when you're sick, if your nose is stuffed up, you can't taste anything. Well, it's not a surprise there. You're still tasting it, just you can't smell it, essentially. And everything goes into each experience that you bite. Even your hearing, when you hear yourself crunch, or if you go into a restaurant, and it's loud and your anxiety spikes. Well, you're now in fight or flight mode and you're not going to enjoy the food because in the back of your mind, your anxiety has spiked and you're worried about the atmosphere so much more than what's about to happen. And so it all plays a role into your dining experience, even when it's at home, relaxed.

Adrienne Youdim

Yeah, I've never thought of your hearing as a component of this or that the place that you're in, you know, and how that interacts with your food experience in terms of having anxiety or feeling charged in the environment that you're in.

Jared Gleaton

Well, and it's something you don't really think about, but it's even like, have you ever had the sensation of pop rocks? Yes, I love pop rocks. Yes, but you're hearing that and it's really interesting, isn't it? And that's just a good example that I like to give to try and give the auditory senses. But in this world where we're surrounded and flooded by anxiety, if let's just say you go out with some friends and you go to a restaurant and they're saying it's a great restaurant, but let's just say that you don't like big crowds or you don't like loud noises. And in that moment, you walk in and you're overwhelmed, you're sight, you're like, oh my goodness, this is loud. It's then loud. your body is spiking these chemicals and it's not doing your taste buds particularly well. And instead of focusing on the enjoyment in the atmosphere, you're focusing on all the negative aspects. And so if you can go into that situation and come up with a plan to address your anxiety, maybe you can overcome it in that moment. And it all starts with food, but then you can apply that to other aspects of your life and situations.

Adrienne Youdim

 Just merely the awareness of that, again, because it's not something that came to mind, but just recognizing that that atmosphere might give you angst and then impact the way you consume, I think is an important first step.

Jared Gleaton

Absolutely. And it's something we don't, again, think very much about. And it just depends on what your relationship is with food and who you are as a person. And it varies person to person because we're all different in different ways. Eccentricities.

Adrienne Youdim

I feel like there's a lot of people who talk about mindful eating, slowing down your eating, using your senses. They may use different words to describe that. And you did this for yourself. You alluded to the fact that you had your own weight loss journey. I would love if you would tell us a little bit about that. And then, Jared, really give us a sense how that works. I think it feels like, yeah, I get it. It sounds so good. But then in the practicality, in the day-to-day, and when we suffer losses, food is such an accessible way to soothe, right? It is. Yeah. Go ahead.

Jared Gleaton

Oh, sorry. I was just agreeing with you.

Adrienne Youdim

Yeah, no. So if you could just, I want more like nuts and bolts. I want to hear about your journey. And then I want you to share with us, you know, when, when we really get into those tough places where there's friction around what we know, but then what we are having difficulty executing because of all of these difficult emotions that we're experiencing, how does one manage that in real time?

Jared Gleaton

Well, that's the million dollar question. And the best thing that the first thing I want to start off with is we learn for our failures more so than we learn from our successes. And it's always what I tell people is it is OK. to make mistakes and have a bad day. It is what we learn from those bad days that makes all the difference in the world and what adjustments we make moving forward. And so the nuts and bolts of it for my weight loss was very simple. It's first understanding how weight loss works and how the body works. Now, of course, it changes if from person to person. There are medical conditions that keep weight on, to be absolutely sure, but generally, overall, weight loss comes down to, and this is the sad, unfortunate reality of calories in versus calories out. That's all calculated through basal metabolic rate. If you figure out your basal metabolic rate, it's based on your age, your sex, and your weight, you can get an idea for how many calories you burn if you sit there and do nothing all day long. Once you can figure that number out, you can either lose calories by taking fewer calories in or through exercise, and it becomes a mathematical formula. Now, that doesn't sound great to everybody, but that's the nuts and bolts of it at its absolute core for a great many people. And so if you can figure that out, you can then come up with ways to lose weight and still maintain the things that make you happy. Because if you sit there and say, I'm not gonna have that candy bar, I'm gonna cut out all carbs, that's not necessarily sustainable. But if you moderate what you eat, that is the long-term goal that was much more realistic that you can meet. Maybe taking that candy bar and cutting it half to start out with. Maybe that popcorn that you love that's full of butter, maybe just a couple of handfuls instead of the whole bucket. These little things here and there make all the difference, but you're not depriving yourself because you've been trained all your life to say, I love these things, I can have these things. If you try and stop cold turkey, it doesn't normally go well for a great many of people. But understanding the moderation and that if you have a big old handful of peanuts, that's almost equivalent to a big old handful of butter. maybe have a half handful of peanuts. And that is the nuts and bolts of how I did it. I increased my exercise and I decreased the amount of calories I ate.

Adrienne Youdim

I wonder if you have this experience, cause I certainly have this experience with certain foods. And I think about, I think about back when I was in medical school and studying late at night and Girl Scout season, something about those thin mints. Like I do not understand moderation. I could not eat it. But once that sleeve was opened, yes, you know, it's very hard to stop. Did you ever have this experience? Or can you speak to that experience of like, trigger foods or foods that like, conceptually, you know, you should use moderation. But in reality, once you start, you're kind of, you know, on that path.

Jared Gleaton

Well, there's two things to unpack there. The first thing is what I did during my exercises, I made sure that every single day, regardless of anything, while I was doing my weight loss, I would eat one pound of fruit or vegetables. I tried to do maybe three quarters of a pound of each, because if I was full, I really wasn't needing the food. But what you get on those Girl Scout cookies speaks to a greater issue, and that is twofold. One, we're told all our lives in this country, finish your plate. portion, portion, portion, finish our plate, finish our plate, finish our plate. And then we are taught there is a value to be put on how much food you get for X amount of money. And then finish your plate, finish your plate, finish your plate. And that's the wrong mentality. So our body is probably full, but we still overeat to finish our plate and maximize value. And so if you can understand that that isn't necessarily a healthy message or a good message, that's the first step is being aware of that. Second, a lot of money and time goes into advertising for those Girl Scout cookies along with research into the chemical formulas and how to make those taste good and hit all the yummy parts of your tongue that tells your brain this is wonderful. And one thing we know about calories and your body is your calories are just simply energy. it's energy. And either your body uses that energy, or it stores it in all the places we don't want it to store, or it's use at other times. The problem is, we generally don't tap in those reserves. We just keep eating more and more. And that's the thing is, from an early age, with the marketing The package colors, the designs, it's all designed for you to reach out and grab and become, I don't wanna say addicted, but to hit all those senses to enjoy this sleeve of Girl Scout cookies the rest of your life. And so there are strategies you can do. So when you open that Girl Scout cookie sleeve, what I used to do is, because I did do Girl Scout cookies, I'd take out four cookies, I'd put them on the desk, I'd then take that box and put it away. So I would have to, it would make it more difficult for me to go get it. And then I make sure each bite of cookie was a half a cookie, sat there and thought about the flavors, continued my work and then went back to it. So therefore I could enjoy it longer. And these little meta strategies that you do within yourself make all the difference when you're trying to lose weight.

Adrienne Youdim

Tell me a little bit more about the beginning of your weight loss journey. So you shared that you'd experienced this loss. Um, one would, you know, one would think that at that point of time, like I've got so much going on right now. This is not the time, right? Like, let me soothe, let me indulge. Um, let me tend to myself. Mm-hmm. Maybe speak to that a little bit, but also you circumvented that. So how did you wrap your mind around making these changes, given that there is such an emotional component to using food to soothe?

Jared Gleaton

So how I got around that was, first off, my dad was always worried about my weight. And second, I was starting to get older. I was right around 30. and my body was not able to hold onto the weight as much as it used to. My muscles started to ache, my joints started to ache, and things got a little bit harder. And so how I got around that was when I looked down one day, I couldn't see a certain appendage and I couldn't see my feet when I peed. And my father was always worried about my weight loss. And I realized in that moment, a change needed to happen, not just for my father, who's no longer with us, but for myself. And I needed to make that change very quickly. And I realized that depression is absolutely one of the worst things that we endure as humans, but I could let my depression and my grief control me, or I could control my grief and depression. So I took reins and I found a strength in myself. And I said, I can do this. I'm going to enjoy the food that I like in moderation. Again, I did deprive myself of that. And I then decided to start exercising each and every day on a recumbent bike starting out, which releases endorphins and makes you feel good. And that's how it started. And then I became addicted to the success. As I lost about five pounds a week starting out, I was just like, well, I want to lose six pounds. I want to lose seven pounds. And so doing the calorie restriction and the exercise, I then was able to channel that grief into something very productive.

Adrienne Youdim

Yeah, I'm hearing two things. one is essentially you are finding your why right like we are we are meaning making machines as human beings and so it sounds like you use that loss to create meaning for yourself and to hold that to that to that uh north star in terms of making those changes

Jared Gleaton

Yes, and I realized in that moment that food controlled me, my grief controlled me, and I was trapped in my own delusion of youth, of I can, you know what, doesn't matter if I'm 376, I can still run, I can still jump. No, no, I could not. It's the sense of mortality. And like you said, just finding a way and a why, and then work, and then taking, seizing the moment to maximize that.

Adrienne Youdim

You mentioned mistakes being a form of success or using mistakes to kind of create success. I'm sure this wasn't like a one-stop shop, this journey for you. Usually these things aren't. Can you describe maybe some of the times that you quote, and I hate this expression of falling off the wagon, but for lack of a better term. Can you describe how you experienced that? And I think it's very, we get very disillusioned, particularly when it comes to our weight, when we experience one of these setbacks. You know, we feel like we worked so hard to get here and now there's this setback and the hurdles feels maybe a little bit bigger than it actually is. Was that your experience and how did you navigate your setbacks?

Jared Gleaton

Well, the first thing is I realized that not every day was I was going to lose weight. And if I ate something and I was hungry later and I binged on a burger or something, I realized, you know what, I didn't undo everything. I can increase some exercise and I can restrict a few over the next couple of days. And I allowed myself to forgive myself for those wagon fall offs. And that was very important because I didn't allow myself to be punished mentally for being human. But I was able to learn from that and realize I could come up with a plan. If I fell off the wagon, five more minutes of exercise every day, 100 fewer calories for the next couple of days. There are ways to negate and offset this, and there's nothing wrong with that. And we have to allow ourselves to realize that we're human and these things are going to happen.

Adrienne Youdim

You're a child psychologist. School psychologist. School psychologist. So this is a difficult, this is a challenge for a lot of children. All of our reports are showing that obesity is increasing in children and in adolescents. And we have this parallel issue of the psychosocial side. So of course, there's a lot of bias and bullying that happens when kids are overweight but we also it's also important to create you know body positive self-image and positive self-acceptance and I find when it comes to weight issues it's like there's there's almost like nothing you can say that is right because anything can be perceived or misconstrued by that child as something that turns into shame. Can you speak a little bit about, and I think it would be instructive in learning how to deal with ourselves too, you know, our own inner child, but talk a little bit about how, how we can do this from a young age, how we can engage in this with our children without creating this additional stigma

Jared Gleaton

Well, the first thing that you really have to realize is a lot of this is, like you said, socioeconomic status, biopsychosocial, environmental changes. And just working through the fact, just like we talked about earlier, finish your plate, finish everything, eat everything, but being okay that we don't have to finish everything. I think that the stigma, there's two ways that people, there's several different ways, well, not just two, but several different ways children, they either internalize it or externalize it. And as we get older, I think that we've lost it where I really feel we need to teach our children that don't allow another person to steal your glory, to steal your happiness. And that goes actually more for adults than children even. And whenever we talk about that stigma, it doesn't help anything at all. We either get deeper within ourselves and resist and fight back, or we become depressed. And either way, we're still giving people these external voices so much power over us because of our perceptions of reality. And I would always encourage people to have a conversation with themselves and come up with a plan for those moments. Write out what your anxiety is, write out what's gonna happen, and then come up with a plan of, in those moments of, let's just say, you're fat, Tiffany, and sit there, a little girl named Tiffany, and say, all right, in that moment, I can take a deep breath. I can not give him the power or that person the power over me to allow those words to hurt. And I think that that is very important because coping mechanisms for these instances is something that seems to be fewer and fewer between for our children and youth. And that is unfortunate. We're replying with adversity with severe signs of anxiety and or defiance. And neither of those things are healthy for society moving forward.

Adrienne Youdim

You know, you said something early on in the conversation that mirrors something that I often think about and I say, which is that our relationship with food is kind of like a mirror into our relationship with ourselves, or the work that we do with food, right, is something that we can extrapolate to different parts and aspects of our lives. Has that been the case for you? Well, you suggested that the work is bigger. Can you talk about how reckoning and reconciling your relationship with food impacted kind of your relationship with yourself or how you walked through the world? Can you expand on that a little?

Jared Gleaton

Absolutely. So by slowing down and really enjoying the flavor profiles, it made me appreciate quality over quantity. And that was huge because that speaks to just sort of what we've been talking about, finish your plate and portion sizes. And so I then valued higher quality fruits and vegetables, ones that don't taste commercialized, ones that, you know, a chicken breast that isn't this huge, because that's not really how an organic chicken breast that, and I'm not even talking about organic, but free range, Pasture chickens. There's a world of difference between the flavors. Just salmon, wild-caught salmon that you could go out and catch. Because I grew up in Maine, if you went out and caught some salmon in a stream, it tastes considerably different than what you buy at the store, even though it says wild-caught. That is a reflection of where I started to value quality considerably more than quantity. And that applied to many different aspects of my life, from my clothing to my vehicles. I really wanted to do more research to better myself and better my choices in making throughout my life. But it started with a deeper appreciation of food, realizing that Kraft macaroni and cheese probably isn't as good as I think it tastes because I've been conditioned from age six to like it.

Adrienne Youdim

And so much of this is habituation. And when I hear you talk, it makes me think of comfort food, what we associate with comfort. But then if we really dial into the experience of that food in our body, it usually isn't comfortable in the long run.

Jared Gleaton

Well, that actually doesn't go back to, but that also discusses the next thing is now, now, now, instant gratification. And so in the moment you're coping and it tastes good, but what you're doing is something detrimental in the long run because we struggle to see the end grime. We struggle to see the long run because we're stuck in our own grief or our own mentality or our own depression. We're trapped by it. And that's where if we have these conversation with yourself and work on self-actualization awareness, we can overcome the very box that we put ourselves in.

Adrienne Youdim

Are you still working as a school counselor? I am still working as a school psychologist. Do you bring any of this, I'm curious, do you bring these insights into your work, into your day-to-day work?

Jared Gleaton

I try to. I work primarily with students with disabilities, so I try and bring a new perspective to things that's a little bit different. I primarily do a lot of psychoeducational evaluations and helping with behavior and learning disabilities. And it's all overcoming. If you are trapped by a label, you allow that label to define you, which takes the power away from you to define yourself. And that's something that I'm big on is it doesn't, disability doesn't change who you are as a person. It just means society needed to give you a label. What do you do with that label? You get to define that label, not anyone else. And that's something that I'm big on.

Adrienne Youdim

It's certainly a practice, right? And it gets compounded, I think, in adulthood, the number of labels, you know, societal or otherwise.

Jared Gleaton

Oh, your doctor, you know, in order to bill for insurance, you're going to find something wrong, right? It's, this is what I always say, sometimes there's not something wrong or there's not an explanation that we think is wrong, but by golly, there's so many outlets to give us a label or a name to our pain. And it's not necessarily a good thing. It's not necessarily a good thing at all. Sorry.

Adrienne Youdim

You know, it's interesting what this makes me think about is, you know, there's so much conversation around the word obesity and obesity as a disease. And I personally am of two minds because I do agree with you that there's harm that can be done when we pathologize people, but I also think that it can be validating to acknowledge that there is a name or there is a cause or there are biochemicals or hunger hormones, right? Yeah, I'm curious where you stand on that in terms of labeling and validating, and maybe it's not either or.

Jared Gleaton

Well, I would say yes, it's all. There's no one way for this. I don't like to necessarily deal in absolutes except for death and taxes. That's unfortunate, but it is validating, and I think that it's great. If that gives you the uplifting to finally give a name to your pain, that's great. The question then becomes not so much the label, but what are you going to do now that you have the label? And this goes back to just weight loss and everything and instant gratification. I generally don't think that the answer is a magic pill. Now, yes, ADHD, depression, you have medications to regulate those chemicals in your brain to try and give some stability, but that does not fix the problem overall or the problems. And that's what we have to realize. Right now in weight loss, the big thing is ozempic, yes? Semi-glutide, GLP-1, right, I think? People don't realize a lot of times what that is or what the chemical reaction is. They just lose the weight. Well, from my understanding, and you're the professional here, not me, just to make sure I'm right, It's slowing your digestion, and it's saying you're not hungry in your brain. It's telling your brain that you're not hungry. So you're not eating as many calories, which is calorie restriction, and you're digesting slower, so you're fuller longer. There's your magic pill, but what happens when you get off of it if you've made no change or no self-reflection or no lifestyle changes? You go right back up. And so that's the problem with labels is what is your plan now that you have the label? And like you said, if you want the first step, it gives you that realization and that support. Yes, great. What's the next step? And that's very important.

Adrienne Youdim

I think the point of the self-evaluation and incorporation of the skills is really important with or without medication.

Jared Gleaton

100, absolutely. And I'm not advocating for medication, that just came to mind that of, again, we want the instant fix now that we have a name for the problem. And sometimes and oftentimes there is no true good instant fix.

Adrienne Youdim

Or even if we're using the tool like the medication or bariatric surgery, whatever the case may be, it works best by employing that other aspect. So it's not either or, but bringing that in.

Jared Gleaton

Yes.

Adrienne Youdim

So you are now coaching and advising others how to do this. Can you run through what that looks like if somebody were to work with you? How do you create real steps or actionable? This is Health Bytes, so we talk about actionable bites. How do you take people along that journey in kind of a concrete way?

Jared Gleaton

So I actually just, on my website, I just released a brochure or a PDF that gives that actionable plan with recommendations and resources how to do that. And the first step is, come up with what are your short-term goals and what are your long-term goals? Let's first figure that out. And if it's weight loss, if it's in the realm of weight loss, I would say the first step is, let's calculate that basal metabolic rate. And let's come up with a realistic timeframe of how much weight you wanna lose. And that is how I would do it. And that would be the first step. And the second step is, let's talk about exercise. Do you want to do exercise or do you not want to do exercise? And the third step, what are some things that you, what are your biggest fears and anxieties about taking this plan? Because we're all going to have those. And then let's address those after we figure out the mathematical formula.

Adrienne Youdim

Yeah, I think a big part of this is premeditating on the barriers. Identifying the barriers and then planning in advance because those setbacks, those barriers are going to be there.

Jared Gleaton

They are going to be there, but again, they don't define us. And it's okay if we have a mistake or it's okay if we fall off the air wagon for a day. It's just how we learn from those mistakes moving forward.

Adrienne Youdim

Or a week or a month.

Jared Gleaton

Or a week or a month.

Adrienne Youdim

 or during the COVID pandemic, right?

Jared Gleaton

Yes. Yes.

Adrienne Youdim

I'm also intrigued by the fact that you're a food critic. So tell me a little bit about that and how you've employed this psychology of food to that kind of work into your own experience in enjoying culinary experiences.

Jared Gleaton

Well, in understanding in the time that I was losing weight, I learned a lot about food and flavor profiles. And I really, when I went and read a lot about food critics, what I found was there wasn't many critics, there were reviewers, and they primarily worked for publications. And they never said any type of critique or constructive criticism of the restaurant. It was always positive, positive, positive. Nothing wrong with that, but it was very subjective. And I found that instead of a true critique, building up the business. And so I wanted to bring something a little different or something that maybe came from the 80s from Gail Green or Ruth Reichel of the old food critics. And that's where I really analyzed the flavor profiles and compared it to restaurants in the same class and then other restaurants in the United States that were of the upper class. An old school approach that has been sort of from a bygone era. And I really wanted, when someone read the review or the critique, they had the ability to close their eyes and sit right there with me and feel the flavors in their mouth, so to speak.

Adrienne Youdim

That emotional experience.

Jared Gleaton

Yes.

Adrienne Youdim

And using the senses.

Jared Gleaton

Absolutely.

Adrienne Youdim

And that's something that you explore a little bit more deeply in your book.

Jared Gleaton

Yes, and that's sort of the book. I start off with just discussing my child a little bit where I build these food and flavor profiles. Then we go into my weight loss journey. And then I talk about implicit bias, explicit bias, personal bias, and how that shapes our world. And then I talk about the five senses. Then I take that information and I discuss critiques of food. Then the next portion of the book, It really talks about bringing those flavor profiles that you learn back home and cooking, not from a recipe, but just from scratch and learning and remembering the flavors that you learned at these amazing restaurants. You can make them right here at home. And then I tie it back to future memories. So we started home and we ended home.

Adrienne Youdim

And I like, well, what strikes me also is this idea of biases. And I think that just, I picked up on that particularly right now because I think bias plays such a big role in our social discourse, our political discourse, our global discourse. Can you talk a little bit about personal biases? when it comes to food and in this light of expanding what we learn in our relationship with our food or our relationship with our bodies and how we can expand that to our experiences day to day.

Jared Gleaton

Absolutely. So your childhood is where your food preferences and choices are formed, and then society and who you surround yourself with continues to reinforce those preferences. So if you have a negative experience with food at an early age, maybe you had a scallop and you hated the texture or you threw up or something like that, that's going to stick with you Not just because of the negative experience, but also it's a internal safety mechanism for your body. Your body associates that with not being good, and you might not like or try scallops the rest of your life. That's formed a personal bias from that negative experience. If we can realize that that is a one-off, that might never happen again, and work on, maybe I can try scallops, you might discover a whole new food sense, a whole new food category that you thought that you didn't like because of that one experience that was bad. And when we talk about biases, this is something that I always think about and perseverate on as a society, because bias is everywhere. And I think it gets a negative connotation when you hear the word bias. And I was thinking that in today's society, when everything is so muddled, I think, what is the difference between racist and bigot? Bigot and prejudice. Prejudice, discriminatory. Discriminatory and choice. Choice and preference. If you look at it through that lens, in this day's society, depending on what we're talking about, there's not much of a difference between preference and racist then. And if we realize this and try and really hone in on the intent and meaning of these words, that's where I feel we can grow.

Adrienne Youdim

So interesting. I love hearing about your personal take on all of these matters.

Jared Gleaton

I know that got off a little deep.

Adrienne Youdim

You know, I think it's important to go there because there is a inner relationship between how we nourish ourselves with food or otherwise. You mentioned exercise. I talk about exercise as a nutrient because of all the value that it can offer. and connection is a nutrient too. And we prevent ourselves from really taking advantage of that nutrient when we view each other through these lenses. So it is deep, but it is relevant.

Jared Gleaton

Yes. And that's where When somebody says, I don't like scallops, I really think, well, is it a food prejudice or is it a food choice? Because I view them as two completely different things where somebody else might think potato, potato. And I think to myself, well, I think a prejudice is considerably more harsh than a choice. And so that's where I go back to just how we muddle the words that are synonyms in some ways, but each one has a distinctly different little meaning, nuances, and that's what makes humans special. And that's what makes our food choices special, our taste palettes special.

Adrienne Youdim

And also questioning those choices that we make and really discerning if this is a choice or if it's just a prejudice. in which case we may reframe it and, you know, give ourselves the option of choosing differently.

Jared Gleaton

Absolutely. Maybe instead of, and especially if you hear yourself say, well, am I being prejudicial? That might call, that might sperm more of a thought of action. Well, I don't want to be prejudicial. Maybe I want to give this another try. Whereas a choice we're more likely dismiss it. And I just don't like it. It's a choice.

Adrienne Youdim

Right. Right.

Jared Gleaton

But it all goes back to self-awareness and self talking to yourself.

Adrienne Youdim

Yes, absolutely. Where can listeners hear more about you, learn more about you, the book? Tell us all the things.

Jared Gleaton

Well, I have a website out, www.JaredGleatonEats.com. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok at Jared Gleaton Eats. You can find me on X and YouTube where I do food reviews, full-on video reviews of food at Jared Gleaton. And you can find my book, A Feast for the Senses, The Psychological Art of Eating Well at Barnes and Noble. And it's on Amazon, ebook, paperback, hardcover, and even an audio book.

Adrienne Youdim

and feast for the senses, indeed. Thank you so much, Jared, for your time. This was a lovely conversation.

Jared Gleaton

Thank you so much. I really appreciate the opportunity. This has been absolutely wonderful.