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Food

How to Eat Like a Loser

The day after Election Day is full of losers. Here are two methods for eating your miserable self through the realization that nobody likes you as much as you thought they did.
Hilary Pollack
Los Angeles, US
Photo via Flickr user D. Garding

You're a loser. Or, maybe you're not. But you've probably felt like one.

Come tomorrow morning, a handful of Americans across the nation will wake up, roll over in their rumpled sheets, slowly open their sleep-crusted eyes, and remember—like a punch to the gut—the uncomfortable truth that for now, they're losers.

Because today is Election Day, and I'm talking about the candidates who won't be able to cry victory as our next senators, governors, and representatives. The ones who, as soon as the votes are tallied, will have lost the biggest popularity contest of their lives so far. (Not applicable to North Carolina congressional candidate Clay Aiken, who was on American Idol, which is likely more stressful than any non-presidential political campaign.)

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These rejected candidates probably feel like crap. But that's OK. It's perfectly acceptable to be a loser every once in a while. Give yourself a break and imagine that you were the hapless victim in a wildly unfair beauty pageant rigged by a psychotic mother.

There are two ways to eat like a loser. Both have the same intent—to try to feel better—but they take entirely different approaches.

The wallowing approach is typically implemented after breakups, terrible haircuts, and getting fired from a job that you were overqualified for to begin with. This technique entails maximum consumption of what is commonly known as "comfort food," a term invented to distract people from the fact that eating a whole package of pasta with a whole block of cheese melted over it or a quart of French Silk-flavored Edy's is sort of depressing in and of itself. But regardless of the grim, obscenely-caloric reality of said comfort food, it certainly seems to have a welcome place in our lives.

In the past, studies have seemed to vouch for comfort food's efficacy. In 2010, a study found that rats fed a sweet, sugary drink saw notable dips in their stress levels. However, when the rats were fed the solution directly into their stomachs, bypassing their ability to detect flavor, they were still as stressed as ever. The researchers who conducted the experiment declared that comfort food's effect is real, but "hedonic, rather than caloric." Basically, it's all about savoring.

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So if you're feeling like a loser, you can totally stick your entire head into a bag of chocolate-covered pretzels. Just make sure to chew. That's how you successfully lighten the crushing weight of the world.

There was some new evidence released just a month ago that indicated that quintessential comfort foods (ice cream, chocolate, cookies) actually have no superior mood-boosting effects over non-comfort foods (i.e. cashews, granola, or even no snack at all). And, because scientific studies are an endless parade of ongoing contradictions, a 2013 study found that women who ate diets high in refined grains, red meat, and soda were 29 to 41 percent more likely to develop depression over the course of the study's 12-year run. But tell that to someone who has just had an inconceivably disappointing day (like being rejected by millions of people in your home state in favor of some schlep) and is being offered a choice of a quinoa wrap or a cheeseburger with a side of mashed potatoes. That burger doesn't think you're a loser. It loves you and accepts you just the way you are.

If you're craving wallow-friendly food, may we recommend whipping up some pumpkin pizza, shrimp grits, a traditional chicken parmo smothered in cheese and béchamel, or a massive plate of Strip Club Fried Rice?

Oops, almost forgot about the other approach: the self-care method. This is for the death of a family member (human, feline, or canine), getting off of your favorite drug, and other forms of "hitting rock bottom" where you're so emotionally destitute that eating even a single French fry seems decadent. This is also the approach less likely to make you gain ten pounds in a single week. Depending on how much your opposing candidate humiliated you over the course of the election, this method of eating like a loser could be equally viable to the wallowing approach.

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Some people find that instead of mainlining a jar of cookie butter, sipping on a green smoothie can improve their level of personal morale. Rather than assaulting your tastebuds with a sugary, fatty pleasure explosion, you may feel like less of a loser if you ingest foods that actually nourish your miserable body from the inside out.

You're going to want to load up on B-12, that crazy vitamin that vegans are always worried about missing out on since it's almost exclusively found in animal products. It's in Emergen-C because it fixes you when you feel like garbage.

And you're going to want to soothe your weary soul with some folic acid. Combined with its buddy B12, it "helps prevent disorders of the central nervous system, mood disorders, and dementias," according to every hypochondriac's best frenemy WebMD. We hate dementias. Let's do this. We're talking spinach. Build a trough out of a tupperware and fill it with spinach leaves, then attach it to the lower half of your face like a feed bag. Chew.

And take a bath in some some Omega-3 fatty acids. They're good for your brain. Get thee to some hamachi crudo, or perhaps some grilled grouper ceviche. Being a loser isn't so bad. This fish is delicious.

And there's always alcohol. Pour yourself a stiff one. You did your best. And all of that responsibility as a State Senator? It really didn't sound that fun.