"Use the 'wrong' hand" to cut calorie intake...

So, I was at the supermarket this afternoon to pick up yeast.  It's a long story, really, to include all the details as to why I needed bread yeast, but it all started the day before Thanksgiving.

Here's the short version.

I decided to try a stuffing recipe again to see if anything had changed between last year and this year and maybe, miraculously, someone in the house had suddenly developed an affinity for this holiday classic.  I needed bread for this.  The bread at the store was expensive and I actually enjoy making bread, so I decided to just make bread when I got home.  I had two packets of yeast left, so I made a quick whole-wheat bread with one of them using unbleached whole wheat flour, a few Tbsp of honey, a few tsp of salt, and a few cups of flour.  It came together in less than 2 hours, because I'm good like that.  (It's a super-secret recipe shared on the back of one packet of every 3-pack of FastRise Dry Active Yeast....)

Anyway, half the loaf disappeared about 20 minutes after the loaf came out of the oven.  With compliments.  So I made another loaf with my last packet of yeast yesterday morning, while the rest of the family was loafing around in bed.... hahahahaha I made a funny.  The entire loaf disappeared before Tina (or maybe Ted) the turkey even went in the oven!

Today we went for a hike together.  At one point, I warned that if the rest of the family didn't behave, I'd make another loaf of bread.  To understand why this was met with cries of protestation rather than joy, please understand that others in this family are trying to lose weight and didn't particularly like the prospect of scents of fresh-baked temptation wafting through the house.  In order to have the ammunition on-hand to make good on my threat, I needed more yeast.

Hence the trip to the supermarket.  While I was waiting in line, I saw Ree Drummond (the Pioneer Woman from Oklahoma who makes fabulous food, photographs it, and posts all this on her blog, and now has a show on the Food Network... jealous am I?  Enough to talk like Yoda I am....) on the cover of a magazine.  I rarely purchase normal-people magazines, usually only on a splurge (like "shopping therapy," which is usually used on trips to OSH for new plants), so this was actually a big deal.

While slowly poring through the magazine I hit on a side article, only maybe 100 words long, that is the point of this post.  The title?

Tempted by treats?

Use the "wrong" hand

The idea of the blurb is that if you use your less-dominant hand to eat finger-foods, you'll eat less of them because "Eating with your clumsier hand forces you to slow down."

I thought about this, and it sounds accurate.  I mean, at one point I was clumsy enough with chopsticks to make them an adequate weight-loss tool.  That doesn't work anymore.  Let's just say I learn pretty quickly when my stomach is involved.  If I had to only eat with chopsticks with my less-dominant hand, I'd lose about 10 pounds in one meal just out of sheer sweat from a mix of frustration and determination!  

I started to pay attention to how I eat finger foods, and I noticed something.  If it's a pure finger food, like fingers touch food, and not a thing where fingers touch wrapper or toothpick, I always use my less-dominant hand.  I tried reaching for something as simple as an olive with my dominant hand, and it just felt weird.  Weird enough that my brain rebelled and said, "NO!  We grab that with the OTHER hand!"

When I took out my contacts tonight, I realized why that is.  I eat a lot of very spicy food.  I take out and put in my contacts with my dominant hand.  Therefore, touching food directly with the dominant hand could contaminate it with hot spice and lead to the pain I experienced this evening.  My brain has somehow figured this out without me noticing it, and only touches food with the left hand now.

This is the opposite to the culture in India, where you only touch clean things like food with the right hand and dirty things like the lavatory with the left.  I suppose we have things like Purell to thank for freeing us from that custom and enable the opposite routine I now have.

So, anyway, FYI, the correct strategy for me is to eat things that require tools with the left hand and finger foods with the right.  If I do this, I'll always pause first to check, "Is that worth the embarrassment of trying to use a toothpick with the wrong hand?" or "Is that worth the potential pain of taking out contacts with chili-laden fingertips?" before proceeding....

Stay hungry!