One month ago, late on a Friday night, I gave birth to my daughter. Soon after my girl exited my body, hunger found its way back in—and it did not discriminate. I lifted the lid on a tray of hospital food, exposing a dish whose every element I would normally avoid: dry chicken breast and limp green beans stir-fried in a syrupy orange sauce, undercooked white rice, and an “Asian” cabbage slaw. I ate it all—barely pausing for air—in about two minutes.
In these early weeks of breastfeeding my daughter, my appetite feels even more urgent. The closest I have ever felt to this sort of hunger before was after a multiday backpacking trip, when food is simply calories and sustenance, fuel for an empty tank, necessity. Three—or, if I’m being totally honest, seven or eight—times a day, I am startled at how I scarf food frantically. I feel like a wild beast—all canines and incisors, saliva, and clumsy paws driven by a single purpose…
