Food for thought

In the sweltering streets of Calcutta, a tributary of the Ganges churns with murky water and the city's poor crowd public spaces. The worst off are frail and often ill; they crouch on sidewalks and huddle in doorways. Amidst the slums of this city of 4.5 million, Mother Teresa plied her healing trade for more than a quarter century. She circulated among India's most impoverished, tending to lepers and orphans, sometimes bringing in the sick only so that they would not die alone.

Interwoven with her ministry of healing and feeding was the idea that love, too, is a basic human necessity.

"Even the rich are hungry for love," she said. "For being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own. The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread."

In our fast food nation, where over consumption and obesity are far greater threats than poverty, we are strangers to the misery of Calcutta's dark alleys. Americans have a girth unparalleled in the world, with a hunger in our hearts to match the fierce appetites of our bellies.

In love, like in our diets, many of us have fallen in line with the quick-fix mentality that has swept our nation's eating habits and realigned the appetites of our libidos. At the first rumblings in our heart, we often seek the fast food equivalent of emotional satiation. One night stands and flash-in-thepan relationships are both products of our need for instant gratification. We make out with strangers in bars, a sexual Pop Tart of empty calories and limited satisfaction.

Yet, our hearts (like our bodies) know what is ultimately good for us. And it has nothing to do with chicken nuggets and chocolate shakes (metaphorically speaking). In "Super Size Me," the 2004 documentary that follows director Morgan Spurlock's month-long eating odyssey at McDonald's, we watch as Spurlock's health deteriorates over the course of 30 days. Towards the end of the film, his doctor advises him to stop the three-a-day Mickie D's experiment, saying it is doing irreversible damage to his internal organs.

Similarly, on the relationship plain, we can only handle so much emotional junk food. If we continue to binge on cheap thrills and shallow affairs, our hearts - like Spurlock's body - will eventually shut down.

In response to the instant-appetitefix attitude captured in the film, a paradigm shift is brewing across the world community. Called the Slow Food movement, it emphasizes natural foods and traditional methods, with a focus on quality local ingredients combined with slow preparation.

Perhaps what we need is a similar approach to romance. In the Slow Dating movement, couples would start with the primary ingredients that have fallen by the wayside in the headlong dash to the sexual finish line: friendship, companionship, and mutual understanding. Add a splash of humor and shared interests, simmer over a low fire of sexual chemistry, and serve when primed to perfection.

Of course, Slow Dating - like Slow Food - takes time. We must learn to cultivate patience in our relationships, to whet the appetite with anticipation and savor the long-awaited results. A difficult thing to do when our hearts are starving.

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