"And the woman saw that it was good . . ."

Gen. 3:6, "And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat."

This helped me figure out another inexplicable behavior of mine. I couldn't understand why I would eat food that I knew I didn't like or that I took a bite & found that I didn't like, but I still would eat the whole thing. For example, I was at a gathering and the hostess had made apple pie. I don't like apple pie. I have never liked apple pie. When I have company I often make apple pie because I know I won't be tempted to eat it. But everyone was going on & on about how good the pie was so I had a piece. I took one bite &, yes, it was indeed apple pie. I didn't care for it. But I ate the whole thing. I felt crazy. Why would I do this? I contemplated this for days & finally the scripture above came to me. Eve saw the fruit, didn't know what it tasted like, but saw that it looked good. And with that limited knowledge alone, she ruined the next thousand years of mankind's history. She was the first emotional eater.

As I thought about this I thought of how many decisions we make with our eyes. In fact, I saw a test of people that ate a hearty breakfast with a blindfold vs. eating without a blindfold & the people that couldn't see said they were done LONG before those that could see. The other test was similar. They had people fill their plate & as they went to pay, the cashier sneezed on their food - so they said, "We'll take this one, go make yourself another plate." What the people didn't know is that when they went back, they gave them larger plates. They then weighed the food on the first plate & the second & saw that people took MUCH more with the larger plates. Put these two tests together & you can see why we eat entirely TOO much.

Lesson learned? Use a smaller plate, eat with a blindfold & don't decide what to eat based on what it looks like.