I was just about to say what is this cookie baking thing you speak of? I've been known to eat pretty much the whole batch in dough form...

No more cookie "baking" for me...there are some things in life that I'm just a little too good at...

Nothing like the domestic goddess routine to bring out the philospher! I think this 'conventional wisdom' is completely off the mark. Bunkum. Hooey. A myth.
Many of us have hidden (or not so hidden) food sensitivities that make SOME foods pure poison for us. A food sensitivity is not the same as a full-blown allergy and the body's response can be delayed enough that connecting the dots is difficult. A few symptoms of food sensitivities include:
headache
coughing
blurred vision
indigestion
skin rash
fatigue
joint swelling
mood swings

Here's how a food sensitivity works. You eat something your body doesn't like - the immune system sends out antibodies (immunoglobulin G or IgG, in this case) to the perceived 'foreign' substance of food macromolecules in the bloodstream. Histamines and other chemicals join the fight and the invaders are flooded with extra fluid to wash 'em away. While this is going on, hormones such as cortisol and aldosterone are released (both of these can increase sodium intake because that's what attracts more water to the cells to help wash away the invader). Bloat, anyone?
All this effort to repel perceived invaders can cause blood vessels to expand/contract, leaking fluid into nearby tissues setting off secondary inflammatory responses. Not least of the body's response to this food is the trigger of adipose tissue to weight gain (either from heightened cravings for the reactive foods or disruption of the metabolism or both).
The same immune response triggers distress mechanisms. First, endorphins hit your system - they're natural opiates which give you a feeling of relief. As the endorphins dwindle, you become uncomfortable and try and recreate that pleasant buzz by eating MORE of the reactive food. Voila! Cravings...

Foods most often problematic are:
wheat (gluten)
yeast
dairy (lactose & casein)
soy
sugar

If you cannot eat one cookie without eating a bag or a batch, I'm willing to bet you have wheat and sugar sensitivities. For me, it was dairy. Turns out, I'm mildly lactose intolerant. Not severe enough to give me the heaves and hives, but boy howdy, one glass of milk puts me out like sleeping pills and bloat! Let's not go there, k? Thing is, I used to LOVE milk and could never stop at drinking just one glass. Looking back on it, it truly did give me a kind of high (the endorphin rush thing). D'oh!
I have similar problems with wheat/gluten.
These days, I am fine with plain yogurt and hard cheese (the lactose is processed out of these) and equally fine with spelt bread products (very low in gluten). But I do not use milk and I don't have wheat breads/pastas. This is my reality. Avoiding these foods has helped me shed 80 + pounds and keep it off for over 4 years.

If YOU are sensitive to a particular food, no amount of moderation will change the above body response. It's a matter of physiology, NOT moderation and NOT willpower.

If you think you may be sensitive to a particular food, do yourself a favor and cut it out of your diet for at least two weeks. Measure yourself before and after (if you lose inches, you can be sure there was some bloat and water-logged tissues happening).

Lastly, do yourself a favor. Research sugar and how poisonous it is to human physiology. There is a direct correlation in the average amount of yearly sugar consumption per capita and the rise in type II diabetes.

ok, I'm off m'soapbox now.

csoar - veddy VEDDY interesting I love your photos BTW! You look a good 20 years younger!

On the subject of moderation - it depends. Some days I can have chocolate digestive biscuits sitting in the cupboard in an unopened packet and they go off with DF to work, and I can say bye-bye to the biscuits (cookies) and be fine. In fact I like that they're out of the house! But open those biscuits and even if I have one, an hour or so later I'll want another one. Which is "moderate" for me where chocolate digestives are concerned! Some days the pack gets opened and it's gone by the next afternoon (not very often since I usually try to get them out of the house quickly!).

I can be moderate with things like pizza - I can take a bite of someone else's and then carry on with whatever I am eating. I am not moderate with things that "don't matter" like anne - I will (and plan to) eat a whole galia melon this afternoon. For me it's a "healthy binge" for less than 50kcals! And air-popped popcorn, I can eat a whole tub of this and regularly do when the munchies hit. I can pretty much take or leave crisps/Doritos now. I don't know why but I just don't eat them any more. I have a bar of 70% chocolate in my desk drawer and we say hello once a day, sometimes (on crazy munchy days) we say hello twice, but not more than that!

I can usually be moderate with cold cereal - however it doesn't make me feel well at all, and when that click goes over in my head that says "EAT" it's one of the first things I go to. That and toast. I used to easily eat 5 or 6 slices of toast in one go. Now I can moderate to one slice, but if I'm in binge mode then it goes up to about 3.

I'm really not good with buffets at all, I have to take what I allow myself and walk away from the table. I don't often see people stare longingly at sandwiches like I do! In fact I think I disgusted a work colleague or two last Christmas buffet when I ate 7 mini mince pies. Oh they were so good and no-one else was eating them - and they were FREE! And they were lovely! (I can't really cope with the free food thing either, student throwback days!)

Baking - I used to eat everything I baked before it hit the cake tins. But I am baking gingerbread favours tonight, and on Sunday I baked a huge batch of them and only managed a small amount of batter and one gingerbread man.

So perhaps I am becoming moderate but I doubt I'll ever be able to moderate those darn chocolate biscuits!