For a society that endlessly whinges about lack of time, we have no problem finding time to eat. Otherwise we would not be as fat as everyone says we are.
Take the cinema as an example, you can't hear the film properly these days for all the munching, crunching and slurping that goes on. If all that jaw action were converted into energy it could run the projector and the air conditioning. In cafes, people are forever lolling about in front of huge plates of something fattening and no one will sit through a night of television without getting up 17 times to get a snack. My daughter will eat a whole big block of chocolate plus a huge packet of chips and perhaps some ice cream on her ``veging at home'' nights.
She is not fat yet but it is only a matter of time. If she vegetates like this more than one night a week I will have to get up the courage to call her gluttonous and greedy, and if the sky does not fall in, I might add lazy.
The daughter is mostly very busy and not reclining on the sofa getting fat, but I nevertheless want to make a point about the greedy and lazy words. As in: ``You don't need a second piece of cake, you greedy hog'' and ``You can't sit on that sofa all day, you lazy lump''.
They used to be words that exhorted you to change your ways but now they are considered abusive.
The reason I need courage to use those words is fear of psychiatrist bills.The delicate hothouse plants that most children have been allowed to become can't cope with language that calls a spade a bloody shovel. Shattered self esteem would require expensive rebuilding in therapy. But that does not change the fact that you are fat because you eat too much, hence the implication of gluttony/greed. Your body can't use all that fuel so it enlarges your shape.
Whoever came up with the seven deadly sins (lust, sloth greed, gluttony, wrath, envy and pride) was labelling human failings that were meant to be kept in check so that the virtues could be practised (charity, chastity, temperance, diligence, patience, kindness and humility). They implied discipline and self control. The sin was in the action: eating too much, being lazy, wanting bigger and better things etc... Now the sin is in the object. I am fat not because I eat too much but because food is evil.
Food is not just cabbage, carrots, a few spuds and a chop - with cake and ice cream on Sunday - it is trans and saturated fats, GI index, diabetes, cholesterol, heart attack and obesity. You open the fridge and a bunch of ugly demons are ready to take you to hell. Thousands of commandments are emerging daily to help you negotiate the sin that used to be called food. You shall not eat salt. Butter is more evil than olive oil. Bread is full of lurking carbs, each one a little devil determined to harm. You must eat cinnamon and pomegranates but not fruit straps and packaged cakes. Brown rice and white rice take turns at being virtuous one minute and criminal the next. And of course, Satan lives in sugar.
You have to deconstruct your mashed potato before you put it on the plate. Probe into its properties, count its calories, work out its GI index and determine what are its intentions towards you? Will it harden the arteries or go straight to the gut?
Under no circumstances do you halve the helping and enjoy the meal.
PS: Violet Grumble is overweight because cake continues to have its evil way with her.
violetrose@live.com.au