Your favourite food reveals your character!

You were a restaurateur, and you are now a psychotherapist specializing in food…

Two matters have helped me to understand and sort out my life. I grew up between my paternal grandmother, always in search of fun, and my mother, who suffered from anorexia nervosa. She would go through depressive episodes where she remained cloistered in her room. At night, I would bring her a plate of food to help her regain some zest for life. I was 5 years old.

Today, I help others find their “magic” food. As a passionate restaurateur, I could not conceive how one could be trapped by their problems with food. So I got myself trained in Gestalt therapy that focuses on sensation, the feeling and emotion. I also studied dietetics, nutrition therapy, naturopathy, symbolic foods, Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine. I spent thirty-six years exploring the ways of food.

Do people have specific tastes according to their age?

Children will instinctively veer towards slightly sweet, soft and non-hazardous foods. Then, under the influence of hormones, but also social life, tastes palates diversify. You may have noticed, teenagers throw themselves upon burgers. From the cheeseburger to the Big Mac, that soft, warm little bun, with its slightly sweet taste, that somewhat resembles a breast. For the centuries that burgers have existed, there is something for all tastes and appetites…emotional. If teens are attracted to this food, it is because it is purely tenderness and comfort. But whatever our age, at McDonald’s, it is the baby in us, hungry for love, that is expressed.

Do our preferences for salty or sweet reflect something of our character?

Attraction to sweet things expresses a need for energy, gentleness and comfort. As a result, stress often results in a sweet craving. Salty food attracts people in search of meaning, creativity, novelty or a challenge. Don’t they say “the spice of life”?

And what does it say if I particularly like mushrooms or tomatoes?

It is not by chance. Whilst doing an study, I met my participants around a stall and asked them to select a fruit or vegetable, and then present themselves to the other interns by identifying themselves with the fruit or the vegetable. It is a playful and poetic exercise, but also very telling when, for example, one participant declared: “I am a nice pear”. Or that a student chooses tomatoes, the red fruit/vegetable, a symbol of love and vital energy, with four chambers, like the heart. It often attracts those who are going through a period of emotional loneliness. A bulimic may opt for a mushroom – a vegetable without a body, just a foot and a head. This choice betrays their desire to eliminate the consciousness of their unloved bodies.

You talk about your participants… Who participates in your sessions?

80% of the cases are women. Nurturing by nature, they have, more than men, addictive behaviours to food, including binge eating. I also get people who suffer from food allergies and those obsessed with healthy food. Wanting to eat healthily is legitimate, but if the anxiety takes over the pleasure and gets in the way of social life, it becomes pathological.

Is it possible that food intolerance, a blockage that appears suddenly, may be related to our personal history?

To find out, I explored the lives of my participants. Once, a young woman complained of a brutal reaction to seafood, which she used to adore. Her first attack occurred during a dinner with her ​​husband, “a banal meal”, she said. In our next interview, a detail came back to mind: that evening, her husband had left the table four times to make a call. I deduced that the subconscious of the woman had perceived a secret and, in fact, shortly after she learned that her husband was having an affair, they also divorced. Awareness of the link between cause and effect has released her from her allergic reactions.

When, for example, a person does not take well to gluten, I look for a problem he may have with a figure of authority. Indeed, gluten refers to bread, symbolic of money and also the father who traditionally is “the breadwinner”. I also studied an entrepreneur handicapped by this allergy – he had to manage a company with a partner, who behaved like a tyrannical boss, putting pressure on him… It brought back memories of his own strict father. This became a double-stress that he eventually somatised in the form of his allergy. Once he realigned his relationship with his business partner, he was once again able to eat bread.

And what about our rejection of a certain type of food?

One of my patients stopped liking pancakes, which she had adored as a child. Behind this loss of taste, there was a grief that had not yet been expressed, that of her grandmother, who annually joined the whole family each Christmas, creating a party atmosphere that had been lost along with her passing.

Is food able to rehabilitate us?

When we suffer from deep wounds, it is desirable to go through some repair work. This was the case of a blind and anorexic lady who only ate bread, rice and a little wine. She had painful memories, including a father who forced her to always finish everything on her plate. Each week, during consultation, I would present her a specific food, for example, I would ask her to take a pineapple in hands, to touch and to feel it, before tasting.

She did not like pineapple, but she was delighted by strawberries. Today, she has reconciled with about fifty foods. Being in tune with the senses is very important when we want to change our relationship with food. It allows is to get back in touch with ourselves, and reclaim our desires, needs and pleasures. The question is no longer biting an apple because it is good for health, but because all our senses are attracted to the fruit.

Is there a link between our attitudes at the dinner table and behaviour in life?

Indeed, there are parallels between the way we prepare food and take care of ourselves, the way we present food and the way we present ourselves. The way we eat also reveals our taste (or lack of taste) for life. There is a mirror effect between how we digest our food, and the way that we are able to digest our successes and failures in life. Finally, our manner of eliminating waste through our intestinal track provides information on how we cling or are able to let go when something escapes us.

Do these have an impact on our psyche?

Yes. If most of your menu is composed of fruits and vegetables that you fortify with meat, you are a little more of a leader. Conversely, if you forsake proteins in favour of a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, you may move towards greater passivity and find yourself further in the world of thought and reflection. During a business seminar, I asked each of the two hundred and fifty trainees to join one of the five proposed food groups: lovers of bread, dairy products, desserts, fruits and vegetables, and meat.

Managers, leaders and those with rank spontaneously went to the meat group. The majority of the group (one hundred people) felt good in the bread group (the “co-breadwinners”, or basic workers). I could see, without really explaining, that dairy group consisted mostly of marketing people, whilst fruits and vegetables attracted accountants and IT technicians. The same way desserts complete the meal, the “finishers”, that is to say those responsible for managing a report or task to completion, such as executive assistants, who choose to be in the group do the same.

What do the expressions related to food say about us?

I used to ask my students to select from a long list of expressions related to food, the three that spoke to them most. To someone who chooses “putting water in your wine,” I wonder if he is stretched too thin, and helps other people too much to the point of neglecting his own desires … If someone selects the phrase, “having the skin of a peach”, it talks about the sweetness and tenderness that her body loves and is waiting for. But is she surrounded by people who meet her needs?

Once we know it, what can we do with the information?

Through food, the quality of the relationship we have with ourselves and others can be studied. Suppose a reader of mariefrance does not take well to milk, the food relating most closely to the mother. This suggests that her mother-daughter expectations were not met. From there, how can she be a good mother to herself? How can she listen to her need for intimacy and care? Finally, what will she do about these demands?

Michel Gillain is a therapist and the author of “Comprendre ma cuisine intérieure” (Understanding my inner kitchen) (Dunod InterÉditions).

Laurence Cochet