I Want More, More Than I Can Stomach!!!

The idea of Eat-All-You-Can is guaranteed to light up the faces of many. People pay good money to patronise buffet outlets in exchange for variety, choice and limitless gorging. From my experience, buffets quite often just brings out the worst in individuals. 

The typical mindset of a buffet patron:

1) I already paid x amount of money, so I need to eat the equivalent or more of x worth of food

2) I am not going to eat breakfast and lunch so that I can eat more than x worth of food

3) I am going to eat more than I actually can stomach so I don't have to eat breakfast tomorrow

4) I am going to stuff my face with all the expensive food (e.g. sashimi, oysters, scallops) even if I don't really like them because I already paid good money for it

5) I love the expensive food (e.g. sashimi, oysters, scallops) and will continue eating them even to the point that I feel like vomiting because I must eat more than the x amount that I am going to pay

6) I am allowed to indulge in as much expensive food (e.g. sashimi, oysters, scallops) as I can even though I only eat oats and banana on a normal day due to my chart topping cholesterol and blood pressure levels because I don't do this all the time 

7) I will pile as much sashimi as I can fit on the plate even though I probably can't finish it because it tends to run out in minutes and you never know when the platter will be replenished 

If you are a sashimi lover, you would really appreciate that deliciously creamy texture of fresh raw salmon slices that literally melt in your mouth.

Slices #1-3 - Blissful Enjoyment
Slices #4-6 - Slightly less Blissful Enjoyment
Slices #6-8 - Indifference
Slices #9-11 - Diminishing Enjoyment
Slices #12-15 - Disgust and Nausea 
Slices #16????? - And still some will go on despite alarm bells ringing in the head. 

Why? Because you have committed to pay a hefty RM89.90++ for the buffet and you had better make it worth every penny. So what do we achieve ultimately. In the end, not only does the pocket suffer, but so does the liver, the stomach, the heart, etc... What is left are feelings of deep regret and false declarations of future abstinence from such ridiculously hazardous gluttony.

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A personal experience 2 weeks ago inspired me to write this post. After a relatively long stint avoiding buffets and suffering from the lack of dining-out choices, having just turned vegetarian, I was thrilled to hear about the All-You-Can-Eat and Pay-As-You-Wish meals at Annalakshmi Restaurant, in Brickfields. The spread they had at the buffet line was amazing and the quality of food, simply incontestable. And I was told that RM10 was more than the average donation. 

So here I was, in buffet-eater mode, momentarily detached from yogi-like etiquette and mindlessly over-gratifying my senses when i noticed from the corner of my eye, a father together with his teenage daughter humbly walking in. From their appearance, I guessed that they were not very well off. It flashed across my mind that this would be the perfect place to dine especially for less privileged people. A wonderfully cooked meal  (almost vegetarian fine-dining) for the amount you can afford to pay. I immediately assumed that they must have not had a good meal in a long time and would probably be happily filling up their plates with all the assortment of dishes displayed. 

But I was humbled beyond words as both father and daughter each barely took more than a palm-sized portion. And they didn't even go for a second round! At one point, the  father even poured his remaining dhall on the daughter's rice. That stopped me dead in my tracks, of chomping down on the 7th papadom. Suddenly I realised and became aware of how far I was from practising what I had just learned that week, the concept of Santosha or Contentment.

To apply a recently read article regarding Santosha in this context...

"We should not be obsessed by the object of desire (delicious free-flowing food) and seek superficial gratification (mindless enjoyment) with no regard for its consequences on ourselves (repulsive feeling of having over-eaten) or the world. We become attached to things (delicious free-flowing food) and people to avoid our personal discomfort (hunger). We are led to believe that satisfaction of our cravings (illusion of hunger) as well as our egos (not eating less than we pay) will bring happiness (calculated satisfaction). To the contrary, ignorance (no foresight of consequences), egoism (kiasu-syndrome), attachment (greed), aversion (thinking the stomach is inadequately filled) and clinging to the sensual (tantalizing the tastebuds) are actually obstacles to our contentment (eating only what we need) and our prospects for liberation (nurturing the body). These five obstacles (called kleshas in the yoga texts) are the causes of all suffering (negative effects of over-eating)."