Food

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'Supersize Me' ably demonstrated the food situation in America: the food is junk and comes in superhuman portions. Yet despite expecting this, my disbelief remains when I order small and get an Australian large (which I had hitherto found to be just that). Expats from Australia tell me that it will only take a month before I develop the capacity to override my organism's cries for nutrients, and the same time for my stomach to stretch to accommodate the serving sizes.

Naturally I am alarmed at both prospects. I am presently committed to eating between 2/3 - 3/4 of what I am served, the exact proportion at each sitting depends on my estimate of its excessiveness and how much I enjoy it. Of course the second factor is the key to the whole tale. Eating more is easy - a quick fix of happiness, pleasure, dirty equanimity. And this thinking is implicit in all the meals, as though at genesis a lusty God barked at his minions: 'Make it sweeter, sweeter, GOOD. Now make it richer, richer, GOOD. Now make it bigger, bigger, GOOD. Now stick it in my vein...' But I will keep my faith, keep to my golden ratio. It is not an exercise in self-denial, but in self affirmation - that I am not an amoeba being prodded by pleasure and pain, but a person capable of pursuing moderation when it is an appropriate style.

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