Yesterday the annual Nathan’s hot-dog eating contest was held. I haven’t watched it in years, but someone reminded me of it.
In my twenties I recall being attracted by it; the competition, the ‘Americana’, the training and skill involved.
Today (I’m forty), to me, it is a symbol of something that we are way too far out of balance with in this country, with food, and many things: more.
How much more can we eat? Have? Do? Spend? How much faster can we do it?
I think we’ve proven the point on that front. We’ve become fat, sick, and unhealthy as a nation. We know how to eat more, faster.
The time and place will come for that as well; it will never go away completely.
But right now, we are in the time and place where we need to understand how to eat less, more slowly, and we might be surprised to find out how much more satisfying, and beneficial, that can be.
