Clydesdales/Athenas (200+ lb / 91+ kg) - OT: Gluttony and "Foodie" - what's the difference, if any?

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1969/12/the-moral-crusade-against-foodies/8370/1/

After reading the above article, I'm not sure there's a difference anymore. Here are some quotations:

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The book Gluttony (2003), one of a series on the seven deadly sins, was naturally assigned to a foodie writer, namely Francine Prose, who writes for the gourmet magazine Saveur. Not surprisingly, she regards gluttony primarily as a problem of overeating to the point of obesity; it is “the only sin … whose effects are visible, written on the body.” In fact the Catholic Church’s criticism has always been directed against an inordinate preoccupation with food—against foodie-ism, in other words—which we encounter as often among thin people as among fat ones.

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Contributors to the Best Food Writing anthologies celebrate the same mindless, sweating gluttony. “You eat and eat and eat,” Todd Kliman writes, “long after you’re full. Being overstuffed, for the food lover, is not a moral problem.” But then, what is? In the same anthology, Michael Steinberger extols the pleasure of “joyfully gorging yourself … on a bird bearing the liver of another bird.” He also talks of “whimpering with ecstasy” in a French restaurant, then allowing the chef to hit on his wife, because “I was in too much of a stupor … "

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Just like any other passion, there is a difference between "loving food" and "being IN love with food." The articles you posted describe the latter. I consider myself a "foodie" because I take a great deal of enjoyment out of preparing and eating food. However I do so by being creative with traditional ingredients, or finding unique approaches to cooking traditional dinner fare. I don't take delight in slaughter of animals, nor do I whimper with ecstasy at a French restaurant. Frankly, I don't know anyone that does. The articles generalize anyone who enjoys food as a glutton. That is as fair as accusing any overweight person of sloth. Sure you'll hit a few, but there are a lot of other fish in that barrel.

Just like any other passion, there is a difference between "loving food" and "being IN love with food." The articles you posted describe the latter. I consider myself a "foodie" because I take a great deal of enjoyment out of preparing and eating food. However I do so by being creative with traditional ingredients, or finding unique approaches to cooking traditional dinner fare. I don't take delight in slaughter of animals, nor do I whimper with ecstasy at a French restaurant. Frankly, I don't know anyone that does. The articles generalize anyone who enjoys food as a glutton. That is as fair as accusing any overweight person of sloth. Sure you'll hit a few, but there are a lot of other fish in that barrel.

I don't disagree with you, but I do wonder at the glorification of food in American culture.

It's possible to be a foodie without being a glutton. Because I enjoy a particular food doesn't mean I have to consume it until it's coming out my ears.

Perfect example: A few weeks ago the wife and I went out to a new (to us) restaurant. The food was excellent, and we each brought half of our meal home because the portions were larger than necessary. We saved room for dessert, which was a house-made salted caramel. It was a single 1/2" square per person, not some gigantic gloopy 1000 calorie heap of sweets.

I don't disagree with you, but I do wonder at the glorification of food in American culture.

Swiss confections
French pastries
Spanish tapas
Japanese sushi

The list could go on and on. It's not just Americans who glorify food. Unfortunately, we seem to be the nation which instead of glorifying food as an art form to be savored, have chosen the "Bigger, Faster, More" model and glorify things like 6 pound cheeseburgers and "athletes" who can consume the most cottage cheese in 10 minutes. Quantity, instead of quality has taken the lead here.

I absolutley agree, other cultures glorify food just as much as we do.However, I think dietary tendencies in America are alot different than most other countries.

There are lots of ways to glorify food. I put "foodies" in the "gourmet" category -- and folks who just like to eat and eat as "gourmands". It is possible to enjoy food while still eating in moderation.

Swiss confections
French pastries
Spanish tapas
Japanese sushi

The list could go on and on. It's not just Americans who glorify food. Unfortunately, we seem to be the nation which instead of glorifying food as an art form to be savored, have chosen the "Bigger, Faster, More" model and glorify things like 6 pound cheeseburgers and "athletes" who can consume the most cottage cheese in 10 minutes. Quantity, instead of quality has taken the lead here.

Right on!

On the subject of competitive eating, the annual Wing Bowl was held here in Philly the Friday before the Super Bowl. The winner consumed around 250 wings for his 3rd consecutive victory. According to one source, that translates into almost 45,000 calories.

I don't disagree with you, but I do wonder at the glorification of food in American culture.

I think your a little off there, most cultures love their favourite foods, they would be willing to start wars to protect them. America seems to have gotten the idea that more is better, and the food companies have realised that 150 generations of adaptation where we needed to crave high fat, high sugar products, because the next famine might be just around the corner, when there hasn't been one in the last 3½ generations, has made gluttony kind of the standard operating procedure, but this is only half the problem.

If we had continued the process where most people did heavy manual labour on a regular basis, walked or bicycled where they needed to go, and had active entertainment, it wouldn't have been a big problem. However we saw more and more people watching machines do the work, also instead of walking or biking where they needed to go, they drove the car everywhere, and cheap gas encouraged this, it lead to the redevelopment of cities and towns to the point that even if gas went up to 10 times the price, they would still "need" to drive everywhere. Then the worst thing ever invented came along, the television, with all the stress of driving and watching machines do the work, we now had the ultimate in doing nothing device. The bonus was that while watching a moving picture, and every 5 minutes your reminded to eat something with high fat and sugar content.

I never got gourmet food portions until I really started trying to lose weight. I used to complain that these people were paying bug bucks for tiny portions of fancy food. Now, I do get it. You have to enjoy things in moderation. Value isn't always measured in calories/dollar. We've been so conditioned to look at things that way that it makes it hard to see things any other way.

Restaurants are forced by this mentality to serve bigger portions than we really need to eat. If we go to a restaurant and get a reasonable portion of food, we feel ripped off. If a restaurant wants to make a profit, they can increase portion size while only raising their food-cost a fraction of the difference in price. Most Americans would rather pay a higher price for mediocre food that they have to take half of home than for truly delicious, unique food that arely fills them up. We need to wake up before we start looking for restaurants by the size of their doors so we can get through and the size of their seats so we can stuff ourselves comfortably.

I like to watch the Travel Channel sometimes, especially "Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern". Interesting, and downright strange ways people eat around the world is interesting to me. What absolutely disgusts me is shows like "Man vs Food" where the host visits an eatery that serves, oh I don't know, a 5lb burger or 8lb rack of ribs. The host then gorges himself on-camera as he takes up the "challenge" to finish the entire dish. THIS is gluttony...

[QUOTE=CliftonGK1;12199756]glorify..."athletes" who can consume the most cottage cheese in 10 minutes. QUOTE]

Now there's a talent to be proud of!

I would think gluttony is all about quantity and "Foodie" is all about quality. As Americans, our desire to multi-task often brings the two together.

What absolutely disgusts me is shows like "Man vs Food" where the host visits an eatery that serves, oh I don't know, a 5lb burger or 8lb rack of ribs. The host then gorges himself on-camera as he takes up the "challenge" to finish the entire dish. THIS is gluttony...

I could not agree more. I admit that I LOVE good food and do have a problem with portion control. The good thing is that the more I exercise and make an effort to eat the correct amount, the worse I feel when I do overeat. So now I find myself looking at the half full plate thinking, "that's is so good I want to eat more, but if I do I will feel like crap". While gluttony got my where I am, I know I am fully capable of being a foodie without being a glutton. Saying all foodies are gluttons is like like saying all wine connoisseurs are alcoholics (I love a great wine, but will only drink 1 or 2 glasses because I absolutely HATE getting drunk).

Restaurants are forced by this mentality to serve bigger portions than we really need to eat.

I love seeing the food shows where they discuss the 10 worst-for-you meals at restaurants. I think The Cheesecake Factory has 3 in the top 10, based on either having in excess of 2000 calories on a single plate, or the same amount of sodium as The Great Salt Lake.

I am a foodie and a glutton. I had fantastic goat roti with plantain and salad and a bottle of Red Stripe from a little Jamaican place a couple of weeks ago, and after eating I dreamt of going on a food-tasting tour of the Carribean. Later that evening I drank five beers and wolfed down a 1/2 pound bag of potato chips.

Unfortunately, we as a culture have embraced being extremist gourmands rather than gourmets. I mean the word gourmand in its original meaning, in consumption of an excess of food. I've changed toward being the gourmet, in that I prefer smaller portions of excellently prepared foods and exercise a refined palate with restraint. It's much more satisfying in the long run. The French are really onto something there. ;)

I could not agree more. I admit that I LOVE good food and do have a problem with portion control. The good thing is that the more I exercise and make an effort to eat the correct amount, the worse I feel when I do overeat. So now I find myself looking at the half full plate thinking, "that's is so good I want to eat more, but if I do I will feel like crap". While gluttony got my where I am, I know I am fully capable of being a foodie without being a glutton. Saying all foodies are gluttons is like like saying all wine connoisseurs are alcoholics (I love a great wine, but will only drink 1 or 2 glasses because I absolutely HATE getting drunk).

You know many years ago, they invented a solution to the too-much-on-the-plate problem, it's called a doggy bag, you don't have to eat the whole thing in one sitting, if your in a restaurant, tell the waiter you want to take it home, they will put it in a takeout container for you. This even works at home, just get a package of those plastic reusable containers, when your happy at half a plate, put the rest in the container and pop it in the ice box. It's also a great money saver, because you can always pop one into an insulated bag, and take it to work for lunch, while everyone else is trying to choke down the $7.50 mystery item covered in grease sauce, your popping your container into the lunch room microwave for a couple of minutes and dining fine for free. The other thing you can do in restaurants, is share..... It's not a new concept, thin people do it all the time.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/09/hard-to-swallow/6123/

A previous review by the same author. A money paragraph:

"Our common language no longer has a pejorative for those who live to eat. Gourmand has taken on an even fancier ring than gourmet, while the word glutton can be applied only to someone who eats an enormous amount of food at one sitting—usually cheap food, and with the standard of what constitutes “enormous” revised upward each year for obvious reasons. When discussing Kim Jong Il, who dines on imported delicacies while his countrymen starve, even our own journalists must describe his fixation in terms of connoisseurship. The last holdover of the old way of thinking is the Catholic catechism, which keeps gluttony on its list of sins and indicates—by using the word gourmandise in the French version, and by defining sin in part as “a perverse attachment to certain goods”—that the original meaning of gluttony is to be understood. No doubt this too will change. A French committee wants to convince Rome that God condones expensive multicourse meals; He just doesn’t like us getting extra helpings."

Thinking back to my youth, it all started with the Big Gulp. A 32oz soda for 32 cents. This was late 70s, we'd get done playing football then walk down to the gas station mini mart and get one of those suckers. Then came all the supersize drinks and meals, etc. and just snowballed from there. I kind of agree with morst. Gluttony is gorging on mass quantities of food, where the foodie is not about mass quantity but more of quality. This past month and half I have cut down my portion sizes and the weight is coming off. Load up more on the veggies and less on the meats and starches.

Definitely a quality vs quantity thing.
We have a curiously puritanical approach to food in North America. In countries where they unabashedly love food and spend a lot of time preparing and eating it (France, Italy etc) you almost never see obesity and helpings are "small" by North American standards. Of course, in reality, those serving sizes are just right.

Here, we use terms like "guilty pleasure" and "cheating" and the nutritional high priests admonish us to "eat to live, don't live to eat". Just as priests of a different sort used to tell people that sex was only for making babies, not to be done for pleasure at all. The result is an either/or approach to eating, where people either smugly eat only healthy food, just to fuel the body, or they go completely off the rails and wolf down vast quantities of all sorts of stuff while feeling ashamed and guilty about it.

Thinking back to my youth, it all started with the Big Gulp. A 32oz soda for 32 cents. This was late 70s, we'd get done playing football then walk down to the gas station mini mart and get one of those suckers. Then came all the supersize drinks and meals, etc. and just snowballed from there. I kind of agree with morst. Gluttony is gorging on mass quantities of food, where the foodie is not about mass quantity but more of quality. This past month and half I have cut down my portion sizes and the weight is coming off. Load up more on the veggies and less on the meats and starches.

You kinda wonder about some things, for example, at the movies, they charge $6 for a small popcorn which really should be enough for 2 people, and it's popped in fat then covered in butter, and a small soda might as well be called a half-gallon. I would rather they introduce new smaller sizes for lower prices, for example the mini size which is smaller and cheaper. Then you can choose the oversized traditional sizes, or the new smaller sizes. You have to wonder to though, air-popped popcorn has been around since the early 1970's you can't tell me that those poppers last 40 years, so why have movie theatres not moved on, you would think that it would be cheaper not needing to buy the oil all the time.

You kinda wonder about some things, for example, at the movies, they charge $6 for a small popcorn which really should be enough for 2 people, and it's popped in fat then covered in butter, and a small soda might as well be called a half-gallon. I would rather they introduce new smaller sizes for lower prices, for example the mini size which is smaller and cheaper. Then you can choose the oversized traditional sizes, or the new smaller sizes. You have to wonder to though, air-popped popcorn has been around since the early 1970's you can't tell me that those poppers last 40 years, so why have movie theatres not moved on, you would think that it would be cheaper not needing to buy the oil all the time.



In the Ironhand household microwave popcorn has been banned by me due to sheer amount of salt and fat contained in those bags. The fact that they smell like dirty feet while they're popping doesn't make them any more popular to me, and since I'm the one who dropped the hammer on the stuff anyway, I don't miss them at all. The kids now have their own dedicated popping pot, they have their choice of corn or olive oil, and if they choose to put butter on the popcorn, they know how to melt real butter. This way they, and I through them, have control over salt and fat content, something most pre-packaged foods don't allow. We had an air popper, but I accidentally killed it by dropping it, and we haven't gotten around to replacing it yet. Besides, fresh popcorn popped in olive oil, with just a pinch of salt and garlic powder, is good enough to be an occasional lunch for me and my 71 year old father!!

You kinda wonder about some things, for example, at the movies, they charge $6 for a small popcorn which really should be enough for 2 people, and it's popped in fat then covered in butter, and a small soda might as well be called a half-gallon. I would rather they introduce new smaller sizes for lower prices, for example the mini size which is smaller and cheaper. Then you can choose the oversized traditional sizes, or the new smaller sizes. You have to wonder to though, air-popped popcorn has been around since the early 1970's you can't tell me that those poppers last 40 years, so why have movie theatres not moved on, you would think that it would be cheaper not needing to buy the oil all the time.

The reason for this is economics. The pop in the half-gallon 'small' cup or the corn in the family sized 'small' bag costs the same as or less than the cup or bag... but in order to show a profit they need to charge $$$$$ for everything....i.e. their cost for the half gallon 'small' is close to the cost for the 1 gallon 'medium,' so they give you massive portions to make it look like you are getting your money's worth.

THere are three options - buy the small, drink 1/3 or 1/2 of it, then dump the rest out into the bathroom sink (or into one of the super-absorbent seats*), or sneak in your own bottle of pop, or eat before you go to the movies.
I have been told that the containers in American theaters are larger than what we have here in Canada... this makes sense because I think the 'small' we get here is , while still larger than any 'small' beverage container in the rest of the reasonable world, is not an obscene serving size for one very thirsty person (I usually get a small or medium and share with my wife).


*joking. Please nobody do this. That's just rude.

Jumping into this conversation

I wrote a paper on it last semester in college it was about over indulgence in general. It seems like as a society for some reason an increase in quantity of any product means more enjoyment. We have justified super portions of everything not because we are need but because it provides us with some sense of pleasure. Why settle for a small when you can get a XL-JUMBO size soda for only 25 cents more? In my opinion its a mindset we have as a society. Sadly even after I read/researched/wrote about this topic I never put on the brakes on my jumbo XL popcorn at the theaters. The funny thing was that as a society our over indulgence doesn't only deal with food but in everything we do We live outside of our means for the most part and enjoy everything in abundance.

P.S.

Im young so :p don't put to much into what I say.

Jumping into this conversation

I wrote a paper on it last semester in college it was about over indulgence in general. It seems like as a society for some reason an increase in quantity of any product means more enjoyment. We have justified super portions of everything not because we are need but because it provides us with some sense of pleasure. Why settle for a small when you can get a XL-JUMBO size soda for only 25 cents more? In my opinion its a mindset we have as a society. Sadly even after I read/researched/wrote about this topic I never put on the brakes on my jumbo XL popcorn at the theaters. The funny thing was that as a society our over indulgence doesn't only deal with food but in everything we do We live outside of our means for the most part and enjoy everything in abundance.

P.S.

Im young so :p don't put to much into what I say.

It's not really a topic for this thread, but there's much merit in your paragraph above. There's a long thread in the "Living Car-Free" forum on "How Simply Do You Live?" You might want to read some entries there. I suggest skipping the Living Car Free forum as a whole, unless your politics are so Left they make Nancy Pelosi seem like Sarah Palin.

Right on!

On the subject of competitive eating, the annual Wing Bowl was held here in Philly the Friday before the Super Bowl. The winner consumed around 250 wings for his 3rd consecutive victory. According to one source, that translates into almost 45,000 calories.

A guy on the 'competitive eating' tour lives in Royersford, not far from me.

Myers' essays aren't specifically discussing obesity, but the soullessness of a single-minded devotion to food, and more specifically that soullessness as presented in food writing.

One point he mentions, but that no one in this thread has picked up on, is the class distinction applied to "foodie" versus glutton. Would we call someone who shops at Wal-Mart a "foodie"?

Myers' essays aren't specifically discussing obesity, but the soullessness of a single-minded devotion to food, and more specifically that soullessness as presented in food writing.

One point he mentions, but that no one in this thread has picked up on, is the class distinction applied to "foodie" versus glutton. Would we call someone who shops at Wal-Mart a "foodie"?

"I don't got a problem if you ballin' on a budget..."
- Apathy, Cheap Sunglasses

Good food doesn't mean it has to be expensive. The wife and I shop at a place called MacPherson's Fruit & Produce. We roll out of there with a full cart of food for around $45. Not a little handbasket of ritzy stuff... A whole bigass grocery cart of food that fills the back seat of the car. Last year we made our winter batches of tomato sauce, salsa and chutney with produce from that stand. It was about $60 for everything; and there's no way you'd walk out of Whole Foods (or even TJ's for that matter) with 50 pounds of tomatoes for $60, much less the rest of the ingredients.
It's possible to shop at a WallyWorld supercenter and get good food. I'm not a fan of their business model in general, but even Wal*Mart has the potential to provide a smart shopper with some decent grub. You're not going to open a Michelin 4-star restaurant sourced solely from Wal*Mart, but you don't have to roll out of there with a cart full of Cheetos and Chef-Boyardee, either.

The problem with the American diet is a lack of concern about both quality and quantity.

A person can be a Foodie and be a glutton, no doubt. But most Foodies I know, including my family and I, care about high quality and moderate quantity. Is that gluttony? I don’t think so.

I wish Americans cared more about food! We consume soft drinks, convenience foods and fast food in huge quantities. No Foodie would ever do that.

I do a lot of work for the high-end restaurant business and have been lucky enough to have dined along side some of the best chefs from all over the globe. Everything that's placed in front of you at these dinners is a test of your "strength" as much as it is respect for the chef. I'm talking 10 - 15 courses of some of the best food ever. This is DEFINITELY not an American thing - All over europe, Australia, China, South America this is done, or at least from my experience. Note however when you're going into a meal like this, people generally don't eat much the night before, nor that day. You are "preparing" for one of the best meals of your life.
I will however criticize the American practice of eating like this ALL THE TIME with (in comparison) really bad food. I'm definitely not a snob when it comes to food - in fact I eat pretty much everything. But I realize that many if not most of the people in America really don't get to eat all that well. I'm talking about 4 slices of Dominos pizza, or a 1 lb. Burger or whatever. Bad fried wings as bar food. You compare that to a tapas bar in Spain and there's really no comparison as to the quality of the food.
Note, I'm also not overweight. I'm a firm believer that if you eat high quality food you can eat whatever you want because it's enjoyed more. For example, it's tough to eat 1lb of high quality blue cheese because you would savor it. Someone CAN eat a lb. of crappy pizza because you just shove it in your face.
To make the analogy, Glottony is Man vs. Food. Foodie is Anthony Bourdain. Though how bourdain can taste anything beyond those cigarettes is beyond me...

To make the analogy, Glottony is Man vs. Food. Foodie is Anthony Bourdain. Though how bourdain can taste anything beyond those cigarettes is beyond me...

Bourdain is a glutton. He's a high-falutin' glutton living large on someone else's dime, but he's still a glutton. Look at how he eats: He's not eating reasonable portions, or single courses. He crams himself to the brim and tops it off with enough booze to put me to shame when I was at the peak of my alcoholism.
He's not 600 pounds because of maladsorption from a steady diet of cigarettes, liquor and a 30+ year history of drug abuse including over a decade of heroin addiction. (He's supposedly clean these days, but watch his mannerisms; I have my doubts.)

I don't see much, if any, difference between Adam (Man v. Food) sitting down to a 15 minute challenge with bucket of 50 buffalo wings and Anthony plowing through a 7 course gourmet spread and 4 bottles of wine with one of his chef friends over the span of 3 hours.

I'm a foodie and kind of a glutton; I think it's maybe because I really get my back into my livin'.

For a while i was packing in 4-5,000 calories a day. Mind you, this was when I was working as a river deckhand and I am here to tell you that when you are building barge tows and doing rigging swaps for 12 hours at a stretch, you *can* eat a Heart Stopper Omelette when you come off watch and still have room left over for the tall stack of blueberry pancakes with extra butter. I was eating like that all the time and still losing a pound every other day. It got to the point that I was struggling to keep the weight on.

I don't work like that anymore, more's the pity. I've found that my body feels healthiest when I am working hard enough to burn about 3500 calories a day, and I try to get it as 2,500 'maintenance' calories of good nutrition, sensible portions, and the best food I can cook (which, though I say so myself, is pretty darn good) with the best ingredients i can find. The other thousand calories I try to get in specifically anti-oxidant-rich foods and things like bran supplements, fish oil, things like that.

It has made a huge difference. I can go out and crank out a 50-miler on a normal-sized breakfast and not have to tank up like a fiend when I get home. If I cut or scrape myself, the scab forms within a couple of hours and falls off two days later. I got one tiny cold this winter and was over it in about a week. My ex caught the cold from me and it flattened her for almost three weeks, but her nutrition's in the crapper.

It has been staggering to learn how much better my body functions, which tells me just how unhealthy I was. I thought I was healthy; I really wasn't. I'm sure that the 108 lbs I've lost so far have had a lot to do with it (yeah... After I quit working as a deckhand, I still kept eating like one for a couple years. Oops.).

Historically, obesity was a sign of affluence. Being overweight was a byproduct of wealth. The poor couldn't afford to eat to gain weight.

As a result, Americans (and other wealthy nations), tend to obesity. The problem as outlined in America is compounded by the sheer wealth available in this country. All of it tends to decrease the need for physical activity and provides plenty of calories. Even the concept of poor in this country is skewed.

The definition of poverty line in the US is such, that incomes at that level (not to mention the additional public welfare support) would easily place such folks as having much higher incomes than the vast majority of the world's population. In essence they are only poor in comparison to their fellow citizens. Indeed, in food terms, even the poorest in this country have more and better variety of food available to them then even kings did a couple of hundred years ago...

I think it's simultaneously tragic and hysterical that most of the poorest people in this country are morbidly obese. And how we're like the only country on the planet with fat farmers.

I think it's simultaneously tragic and hysterical that most of the poorest people in this country are morbidly obese. And how we're like the only country on the planet with fat farmers.

hyperbole and exaggeration will get you nowhere... That said, the most common causes of death for people living under the arbitrary and somewhat delusional "poverty line" in America are related to OVER eating, whereas most truly poor people in the rest of the world generally die from starvation. As a side note most people living in "poverty" in America own one or more television sets and other entertainment devices, own one or more cars, reside in houses of 1500 square feet or larger, and have convenience items such as washing machines, clothes dryers and even dishwashers in their home. These aren't the Hiltons, but they're not exactly what most of the world would consider remotely "poor" either.