Appetite

“If there were a pill that eliminated your appetite forever, would you take it?”

I’d met a friend for a decidedly poor dim sum lunch. As we were finishing up, he proposed the idea of the hunger-killing pill. I wasn’t sure how to respond. I gazed down at my half-gnawed pork dumpling.

“Let me think about it.”

Food: Would I really miss it? Often I find the daily task of feeding myself a chore… Do I eat in or do I want to go out? If out, where do I go? And then, what kind of cuisine? And what do I order? It’s a three-time-a-day hassle.

Of course, there are also aspects of food and eating that I really enjoy. Hot dogs at a summer barbecue… the chicken parmagiana plate at the restaurant around the corner… steak frités! Would I take a pill that erased all this for me?

I figured the only way to decide was to examine what it was I’d be leaving behind. I mean, what do I really eat? I have no idea—I couldn’t say for sure what I had for lunch two days ago. To gain a better perspective, I decided to take a photo of everything I ate for a week. For sanity’s sake I limited this to solid foods. If I snapped every cup of coffee or bottle of beer I consumed I’d run out of film pretty quick.

The results? Would I pop the pill? Give up food? Well… I’m still not sure. Let’s meet for dim sum and discuss it.

(The week I chose happened to coincide with a trip my wife and I were taking to Kansas City, so my regular schedule and menu choices were a little disrupted. I don’t normally eat Skittles and pretzel dogs for lunch. Nor do I weigh 400 pounds—as you might suspect from these images.)