Eating out

Subject: Eating out

We are surely creatures of habit, habit brought on by often thoughtless repetition.

Take eating. We are reminded that having a good breakfast is good for us it constitutes a restart, a refuelling from the previous day and gives the digestive system something to get its hands on and stoke the energy levels. We glance at our watch to remind ourselves that it's 10 o'clock and time for tea, midday and lunchtime 6pm and dinner and even a snack at 9.00 just before thinking about turning in for a nights rest. 
I wonder, how often we ask the question, "am I hungry".
The Indian Farquhar who trains himself practicing abstinence to rid himself of worldly desire reducing his intake of food to a practiced minimum, just enough to keep his bodily functions alive. Contrast this with the guy who can't walk passed a MacDonald's or  Kentucky, fills his mouth with chocolate bars and loads his plate each mealtime which enough food to feed the family.
Fooding is a learnt pastime, its often an alternative to boredom and depression, the mundane lives we lead, which need propping up with food or at least the routine which comes with preparing the eating ritual.
For many eating is a haphazard affair, eating on the go, off a tray watching Tv,  for others an almost sacrilegious event with all the formality of starched serviettes and fish forks. 
Eating and the way we eat sets us apart and identifies us. Even the titles we give to the style and formality in which one food course proceeds the next is evidence of ones class, an example of how far we have moved from our cousins the primates in a deliberate attempt to find colouration and complexity, to differentiate ourselves.  
The process of course excludes the billions who are staving and each day struggle to eat enough to stay alive. For them what's edible is often what is discarded as trash, for them the disdain of not knowing where the food comes from is foolish, it's food and is  eaten to stay alive. 
How spoilt we are in our multitudinous diners serving food from all quarters of the globe. The soup a little spicy, the fish a little dry, the meat a little tough, no end of complaints no end of feeling dissatisfied. What spoilt brats we are as we swell up with each course, as we order another bottle or down a second brandy. The art of excessive consumption is well and truly with us, no wonder our children are obese or that we suffer the need for hip replacement, no wonder we promote diabetes and heart problems, when, the very thought of exercise makes us sick.
Disenfranchised from common sense and infused with the practises of the common herd we embark on ongoing bouts of consumerism, be it in the restaurant or the shopping mall, we are entranced by the glitter and the thrill of the next purchase without having absorbed the last.
The crowds who blocked the roads and bridges in London warning us of climate change much of it due to over-consumption were reminding us of our folly  but common sense was drowned out by the cabbies anger, I can't make a living. 
It's this play between what we call, 'making a living' and 'really living our lives' in moderation, sadly a word which is loosing its meaning in this kaleidoscopic mismatch between the haves and the have not.