IN PRAISE OF GLUTTONY

I enjoy food and I’m not afraid to admit it. I am naturally attracted to anything containing cholesterol, sugar or salt. Most of us are. These foods taste good because our body recognizes them as high value foodstuff – the kind of rare booty that a skinny, scavenging primate in central Africa one million years ago would trade an opposable thumb for.

Unfortunately, our bodies are not suited to a surfeit of high value foods. We get fat, have heart attacks and die. We perish of plenty, if not with a smile on our face then a surprised smirk.

The pure enjoyment of food is an under rated pleasure. Most of us consume food three times a day, with some extra snacks in between. Even the most frustrated adolescent is unlikely to satisfy his sexual urgings as often as that. And its great fun. We literally drool before every meal at the prospect of stuffing our faces. That is indeed the evolutionary purpose of drooling – to get the mouth ready to eat. But unfortunately there is a moralistic puritanism that has grown around the most innocent of the seven deadly sins – gluttony.

It is no longer politically correct to rail against the sin of lust. You can have sex with almost any consenting creature or inanimate object you like and no-one would publicly rebuke you. But eating too much food is considered a weakness, a character flaw, an indulgence that will be punished by nature, if not God.

Most weaknesses of character are invisible. I may be envious and untrustworthy. I can have any kind of sexual perversion you like. I could even be a cannibal. And you will not see it advertised on my body. While we might not find the mind’s construction in the face, we can reasonably conclude quite a lot from a cursory examination of gut and butt. Gluttony alone among the seven sins betrays itself on the corpus, like Dorian Gray sans the portrait. We no longer see sin in the teenage girl showing the signs of pregnancy. But we see sin in the corpulent and condemn them. They are not healthy, inside or out. The spectacle of their fatness offends our aesthetic sense which equates slimness with virtue.

There is a branch of science that deals with eating, called nutrition. What do nutritionists recommend? Essentially they preach abstinence. Don’t eat fatty foods or sugar or drink booze. Abstinence is also the position of George Bush’s moral majority regarding sex. Don’t do this. Do less of that. Stop it or you’ll go blind. It’s not going to happen! People will keep doing whatever feels good.

This is where scientists are completely letting us down. Don’t tell me to eat less fat. Don’t tell me to exercise an hour a day. It hurts and I don’t have time. Why don’t you orient your research towards a proper solution, namely a pill? Give me a bloody pill that allows me to eat 3kg of steak a day and five vanilla slices. Give me a pill that will slow down or re-balance my metabolism so that the tasty morsels I love to eat will not enter my blood stream. Stop advising, lecturing or shaming me and give me a bloody pill!

You will not find any scientific effort being directed towards this noble goal. I think the reason is deep moralism. There is a sense that over-eaters should be forced to live with the consequences of their sins. I beg to differ. Society once saw infectious disease as intrinsically related to unclean morals. Yet we created antibiotics for killing bacteria and put them in pills. Caught syphilis? Here, take a pill. We created a pill for preventing pregnancy or even for the morning after. Why can’t we create a pill that prevents us food lovers from getting fat and resembling the pregnant?

P.S. It is now 7 years since I wrote this piece. There is now a very widely used pill called Lipitor which reduces cholesterol drastically. The clinical evidence suggests that even people with normal cholesterol benefit. But currently you have to have had a high reading (like me) to get on it. When I mention this at social gatherings there is often some disapproving comment. Why don’t I try the “natural” way? (Actually I lost15 kg for other reasons and this had no effect. Yes, I guess this makes me a hypocrite). Anyway, I am looking forward to the creation, wide distribution and acceptance of the hangover pill.