Is Enough Ever Enough?
Delicious, But 1/2 Sandwich Was Enough Yesterday
I guess today’s post is a little less food, and a little more thought, with a serious helping of salt on the side. It started this morning as I watched the “Today Show” while working out. They seem to always feature segments on diet and health, including a segment they call “The Joy Fit Club” which is supposed to be an inspirational series depicting how regular folks manage to lose extraordinary weight. This morning I caught a similar series, but this was about a group of “Today Show” backstage staff working on a weight challenge. It made me start to think…
I began to think about how when something is good, they have to feed us more of it. It’s never enough to have a small portion of weight loss advice – we Americans have to do things on a grand scale. The “Biggest Loser” is just another example of feeding American’s, apparently ravenous, appetite for watching people diet, suffer, and lose weight. Or, you could look at it as another example of how the media is gorging us on reality television. If something’s good, bring on the supersize.
All-you-can-eat buffets, large portions, two for ones, warehouse club stores, apparently if you offer a lot of something to an American, they’ll like it even more and lick their plates clean. Is it an obsession with getting more for your dollar? Is it just a culturally ingrained preference large sizes? Does it harken back to our settler days of loving the vast, open spaces of these fruited plains?
I wonder if companies fed us small bites of good things and marketed them as fabulous, if we would lose our taste for the large portions that are being forced upon us, be it food, media or other consumables? If we tried to savor each little bite, instead of quickly shoveling in as much as we can, if we’d stop desiring more? My guess to that is probably not – we’d feel that we were being cheated. After all, if you’ve been raised to look for value and volume, it’s hard to change that mindset to less is more, even if it’s true.
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Small bites of good things will ‘leave ‘em wanting more’ as the saying goes. Have you ever had it happen that when you cook just enough everyone wants a second portion and it’s not there? We have gotten so used to quickly shoveling in as much as we can as fast as we can-we are fast consumers,it’s not the food that’s fast! Slowly savor the good stuff first time around and let the seconds be in your thoughts not your mouth. Now how do you teach people to eat slowly?
That’s a great question. Food is just another thing we try to quickly squeeze into our schedule before we have to run to a kids’ soccer practice, a volunteer meeting, to see a tv program, or whatever busy stuff we’ve shoved into our lives. As I said, less may really be more. I think movements such as the “slow food” movement are a sign that some people are beginning to realize this.