Feeding the Creative Body

In my last post, I talked about feeding the creative soul, and I said that while cheeseburgers and protein shakes may help runners, they don't do much for a creative.

That's not entirely true.  What we put in our bodies is responsible for fueling the brain with which we come up with our ideas and the body that lets us turn those ideas into something physical.  While Remi's father in Ratatouille claimed that if you get picky about what you put in the tank, your engine will die, we all know that there are certain foods that a creative really needs to power his body.  Here are some of the more important ones:

• Coffee -- Man cannot live on coffee alone, but he can come close.  Coffee is what jump-starts our brain in the morning, what gets us over that early afternoon energy slump, and what keeps us awake and alert at two in the morning so we can allow our creations to come gloriously and miraculously to life.
• Donuts -- If man cannot live on just coffee, then he could survive indefinitely on coffee and donuts.  A full day's worth of fat and carbohydrates, packed into a convenient hand-sized piece of fried dough.  If you feel the need to get in touch with some ingredients that might have come from something that might have at one point been alive, you can always opt for the jelly filling.
• Tacos -- Again, they're convenient, hand-held, and, if prepared correctly, spicy enough to wake your mouth and body up for long stretches.  Load them up with onions, and have the added perk that your breath will smell so horrible, no one will want to come within a twenty-foot radius, giving you hours of free and uninterrupted creative time.
• More coffee -- See above.
• M&Ms -- With the jaw so close and so physically connected to the brain, it only makes sense that if one's lower jaw is moving, it must provide some physical stimulation to the brain itself.  M&Ms make a great treat that the creative can eat and eat and eat, thus providing a constant stream of extra mental stimulation.  That, and they're just darned tasty.
• Soda -- For when the coffee's gone cold, and microwaving it one more time is going to give it sentience.  Soda carries much the same alertness benefit as coffee, but the carbonation tickles your insides on the way down, waking you up from your head to your toes, or wherever soda goes once it enters your body.

Now I know there are those nay-sayers out there who will look at this list of foods for the creative and cry foul.  They'll say that eating only these foods will cause a person to be on a blood sugar roller coaster, soaring to heights of frenetic energy before crashing worse than the stock market in the 2000s.  Over and over, soar and crash, soar and crash.  They'll say that instead of endless sugar, the way to go is regular healthy meals of protein, vegetables, and whole grains.

These same "helpful people" will claim that meals like curry or other ethnic foods provide the taste buds with stimulation they don't normally receive, creating new neural links in the brain, and enabling new and even more creative thoughts than before.  They might also point out that the turmeric in curry has been shown to help kill cancer cells, so it has that going for it, too.

And then, worst of all, these obnoxious smart alecks will claim that three or even four pots of coffee every day are a bad idea, and that any more than a couple of cups has negative health benefits, including the inability to sleep well at night, and all-day-long jitteriness.  They'll claim that eight glasses of pure, clear water every day are the way to go.  Water?  Are they kidding?

I leave it to you to decide, but I think we all know what the best fuel for the creative person is.  I'm not here to make up your mind or tell you what to think, only to give you something to think about.  It's just my hope that, if you're really serious about being a creative, you'll think long and hard about the foods you put into your body.  Don't starve your creative mind of those foods it so obviously and desperately needs.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go heat up my coffee.