Food Frugality: Is it you, or the eating disorder?

We need to talk about food frugality. Or, more specifically:

The reason why we get so “uptight” around food waste in recovery.

To kick us off, I’m going to let you in on a little secret, and it’s kind of (really) embarrassing:

My husband used to have to hide his leftovers from me under a crumpled up napkin... Because I used to give him flack for not saving his scraps for later.

Yup. I used to save every last speck of food. I had to. 🤷🏻‍♀️

What with our composting, zero-waste milieu on the rise, my mission to save every last grain of rice from the garbage disposal felt more like an honorable endeavor than another disordered compulsion, but I knew something was up. And I wasn’t alone.

Thing is, it wasn’t just me experiencing these compulsions. Frugality is super common among those recovering from eating disorders. And it can show up in so many ways.

Food frugality can look like:

👉🏼 Feeling compelled to bring your leftovers home from the restaurant.

👉🏼 Wrapping up every bit of food to save for later.

👉🏼 Being upset with other people for “wasting” their food.

👉🏼 Hoarding food by keeping your pantry stocked…

👉🏼 …or doing the exact opposite, like needing to finish the bag of chips you currently have before getting another flavor.

👉🏼 Forcing yourself to finish something you don’t want more of, or;

👉🏼 Forcing yourself to finish a food you dislike, even if that means days of subjecting yourself to something unpleasant.

And listen: this list is anything but exhaustive, and food frugality can show up in other ways.  For example: only eating when you’re absolutely famished. But frugality can bleed into other areas of our lives, too. Like having to squeeze the very last bit of toothpaste out before moving on to the next tube, not wanting to spend too much money on groceries, or even by wanting to follow a vegan diet (given that vegetarianism promises to reduce your footprint - despite the fact that it actually doesn’t).

So, when it comes to frugality, we’ve covered the what. But what I wanted to know was:

Why was I, and so many others in recovery, feeling this way?

And honestly, there’s no hard and fast answer.

Let’s analyze:

First and foremost, let’s take a look at our best evidence of a Post-Famine Frugality Mode kicking in: war victims. For those who lived through the famines caused by war, we can observe a general trend toward frugality. Some survivors tended to hoard food, or even eat spoiled food rather than throw it away. One writer who survived the Great Depression wrote: "You have no idea how hard it is to throw away anything or waste food to this day.” In another instance, a 91-year-old artist who survived two concentration camps said, “My friends always tease me because my refrigerator is always full. They say, ‘You could feed ten people.’ I think this is definitely from starving for many years.” In short, there’s a huge pool of evidence for frugality kicking in after famine. To help us understand why, we look at our biology.

Ever hear of The Biology of Human Starvation? Better known as ‘The Minnesota Starvation Experiment,’ this human experiment is our best evidence to date on the mental and physical effects of starvation. We go way deeper on this in my ebook, so for the sake of this argument, I’ll keep things brief.

As a part of the experiment, men who volunteered to go on a semi-starvation diet shared a cafeteria with non-volunteer college students who ate freely and normally. And when these students tossed their uneaten leftovers in the garbage? Let’s just say the volunteers weren’t exactly amused. But they didn’t react negatively because they wanted the food for themselves: they just couldn’t stand seeing food go to waste.

Which brings me to my point: having the urge to save food from being wasted could be the result of an evolutionary adaptation. After surviving a lack of food, when we eventually do get food again, it would make sense that we’re psychologically wired to ensure there’s enough food to last until we’re 100% assured that food is no longer a scarce resource.

Think about it: in the most basic sense, wanting to be frugal after a period of not having enough food to sustain you just… makes sense.

Thinking back to my own recovery, I often worried why I was suddenly so uptight around conserving food, because honestly, when it came to leftovers… I had zero chill. But in the end, it wasn’t a personality change that was occurring. I wasn’t suddenly just an uptight individual: it was my eating disorder. When all is said and done…

Food frugality is a reaction to food scarcity.

It doesn’t mean you’re a newfound Frugal Franny. Here’s why:

While you’re in recovery, it takes time for your brain to trust that food will stay within reach. Your brain is displaying a natural and healthy response to famine: preserve the food! In other words, you don’t have to internalize the urge to be frugal as a part of your own personality, because frugality isn’t a personality change, it’s a reaction to disordered eating. If you’re currently in recovery and are struggling with being overly-frugal around food, just know this:

There’s nothing wrong with you.

Food frugality is a totally normal response to experiencing famine, regardless of whether it was caused by war or mental illness. But before anyone can come at me for demonizing frugality, let me say this: while being frugal isn’t inherently bad, there’s a line that’s crossed when being frugal starts to hold you back from reaching full recovery. Most obviously, when it comes to indecision.

I talk more about indecision here, but I’m mentioning it again in this post because frugality and indecision go hand in hand when it comes to recovery efforts.

A lot of people in recovery have a really hard time making food decisions, and part of the reason why is frugality. After a period of disordered eating, you’re understandably not used to having ample opportunities to eat throughout the day, let alone opportunities to eat whatever you want.  And since you don’t want to waste any opportunity to eat on something that isn’t “perfect,” you inadvertently end up wasting your time and already thinly-stretched mental energy on trying to figure out what that “perfect” decision is. If you’ve ever experienced this, it’s possibly the most maddening aspect of recovery - both for you as you’re recovering, but also for anyone who might happen to be there to support you.

For example, let’s think about how you’d react when tasked with deciding where to order takeout from. You might scroll through Google reviews, check instagram photos, websites, Yelp stars, and photos. You might consider what you’re craving, what you’ve already eaten that day, or maybe you’re consulting which eating disorder rules you want to push or appease to. God knows how long this can take, and when you’re still recovering from however long of being hungry, it does’t take long before a perfect storm of simmering hangryness and indecision overload falls upon you and whatever well-intentioned individual happens to be nearby.

But here’s the thing: You don’t need to do a full background check of a restaurant before deeming it worthy of ordering from. You can literally just order something, and move on. You know why? Because: you don’t have to make the perfect decision.

This applies for all food decisions.

If you hate a food, you don’t have to finish it. If you hate a restaurant, you can choose a different one next time. It’s OK to choose wrong. This isn’t your first and final chance to eat something. You can and will eat again.

Do you struggle with food frugality or indecision?

If so, I have some good news for you:

It doesn’t last forever.

Remember back when my husband used to have to hide his leftovers? It definitely was silly at the time, but only now can we laugh about it. I most definitely was uptight about conserving food in recovery, but these symptoms weren’t a part of me, and guess what? They went away after recovery.

So, what’s the best way to move past this phase? My advice is the same as always:

Keep. 👏🏼 Eating. 👏🏼

The more you consistently feed yourself, the more you reinforce to your brain that there’s plenty of food to go around, the more your body will realize it doesn’t have to stress about losing access to food again, and the less it’ll keep you on high alert over conserving whatever food there is. In short:

Eat the Food ==> Lose the Frugality

Remember, this stress response isn’t you. Just keep eating. And when all is said and done, you’ll find yourself again.

Rooting for you always, ♥️

Maria