I can’t keep enough food in the house. Sitting down at the table, I observe ravenous children speedily gorging on dinner, and somehow the prim and proper Miss Manners manages to surface inside of me: elbows off the table, take your baseball hat off, slow down and don’t even try to tell me you washed your hands. As dinner concludes, like hovering seagulls, they consume left-behind scraps from other plates. Collectively, we all manage to become members of the clean-plate club.
My husband chalks it up to growing boys – this is familiar ground for him. The teenagers in the house are running track and are burning a lot of calories. So I concede to the uncharted territory of growing boys. I tolerate it only because they are thin.
A few weeks ago, our family went to the movies. I watched my middle son polish off a small (if you can really call movie theater popcorn small) bag of popcorn, a movie-theater size box of candy and a soda. I refused to buy it for him, but he had his own money, and felt that he could spend it as he wished. I’ve learned with teenagers, you pick your battles. For the record, it should be noted that we had just left a restaurant, and were late getting to the movie because we couldn’t eat fast enough.
In the middle of the night, Sam became sick to his stomach. We thought surely he had caught the stomach bug going around. But by breakfast the next morning, four waffles with butter and maple syrup towered his plate, which he consumed at record speed – confirming that his illness was short lived. “I thought you were sick,” I said. “No,” he replied, “I just ate too much at the movies.” A lesson learned, without saying much.
Sam turned 14 this week, and for his birthday he wanted to keep with family tradition of going to his favorite restaurant, Flatbread, the pizza place on Portland’s waterfron. At breakfast that day, he announced that he would be eating two light meals to save room for a big meal at Flatbread. I chuckled inside – perhaps the movie theater lesson had staying power, or maybe there was more to this.
He is the same son who will remind his younger brother to be grateful for the food on his plate, for there are others hungry in the world without nearly enough to eat. And it is more than just talk. Sam desires to go on mission trips to see how others live and help those who have less than him. Perhaps it’s intuitive, but in reality, I think along the way he feeds on inspiration from what he hears and sees.
We are fed physically, mentally, and spiritually by our surroundings. What we hear, read, see and experience gives us perspective and, no doubt, the media have a powerful influence. As a parent and a consumer, it is my hope that things are kept in the proper perspective. Of course, perspective means different things to different people. When it comes to eating, our country has lost perspective of the sanctity of the meal.
It’s a sad commentary that the burrito-eating battle was the front page feature story of last week’s paper. As Major League Eaters”battle the burrito, obesity has reached epidemic proportions in the U.S. Of course, Americans love their sports too. So elevate excessive eating to sport status, and suddenly anything goes – and lots of it, at that. Forty-four lobsters in 15 minutes, 15 burritos in eight minutes – leave it to America to redefine fitness. Just take a look at us!
It’s time to restore some manners and dignity to the act of eating. Food nourishes the mind, body and soul. It should be savored and shared with love and respect for all of mankind. To reduce the act of eating to a competitive, gluttonous pig-out makes me sick and ashamed. I’m left hungry for one thing – real news.
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