Sweet Potato Chips and Alphabet Soup
This past weekend, I experimented with homemade baked sweet potato chips.
Whole30 discourages snacking and prohibits “commercially prepared or deep fried chips or fries,” but homemade, baked chips are okay in moderation as long as they’re “not pushing other veggies off your plate” (this is one of my favorite guidelines of the Whole30. So straightforward!). Anyway, the chips turned out great - maybe too great. I sliced up a moderately sized potato - probably three servings worth if roasted - and ate every. last. chip. And wished for more. Which leads me to my first experience with...
FWNB: Food with no brakes. This is technically compliant food that triggers “disordered” eating - mindless hand-to-mouth action, inability to stick to an appropriate serving size, and ignored satiety signals. Check, check, check...
and its partner in crime...
SWYPO: Sex With Your Pants On. SWYPO foods attempt to recreate banned foods (usually baked goods, candy, desserts, etc) with compliant ingredients, and this perpetuates bad food habits because it either (a) satisfies and therefore perpetuates an unhealthy craving or (b) it falls short of the real thing, thus increasing your desire to, you know...take your pants off.
In my case, sweet potato chips weren’t SWYPO in the doesn’t-measure-up category...but oh my God, did they make me want to crack open a Mountain Dew (my pre-Whole30 cold caffeine of choice). I had gone almost three weeks without even really thinking about soda, but those chips almost broke me. So *I’M* calling them SWYPO for me, and declaring them off-limits.
Lesson learned!