Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Our hunger for more

There is this woman I read about in the papers recently, who won an eating contest. I think she’s from Malaysia or thereabouts. You have these eating competitions all the time, everywhere, and hear about men and women drinking two or three gallons of milk in a minute and a half or throwing in one lamb chop after another into their mouth and well, this woman I read about, ate 46 grilled chicken sandwiches in eleven minutes. In order for those sandwiches to go down her throat easily and quickly she had to soak them in water. This same woman has taken part in umpteen such contests and bolted tons of other kinds of food in a similar time frame. Wolfing down kilos of sweets, steak, hamburgers and the like to be able to get her name in the Guinness or some other book of records. Can you believe it?

Just shows you how desperate people are for attention. And also the fact that this is what our culture is based on. The acme of greed and consumerism. I mean in a way this kind of competition goes beyond both, and needs to be mentioned in a class of its own – stupidity maybe?

News items like this somehow simultaneously amuse and horrify me. It is good shock value in a way, it gives you something to talk about. But then again, when you look at how depraved the whole business is, it gives you rather a jolt. To see that human beings want more, more and yet more of everything. That “more” is supposed to be good. More cars, more fridges, more money (of course, goes without saying), more lovers, more sex (nothing bad about that except when it becomes part of the “more game” anything loses its meaning altogether).

Wee…eeelll, coming back to that chicken sandwich. I personally love a good grilled chicken sandwich. Mostly I can’t even finish the one I order at the snack bar and have to ask for it to be packed up so I can eat it at home the next day. Maybe the Guiness Book could include me in as the person who needs the maximum length of time to eat the smallest portion of grilled chicken sandwich?


website: www.basicindia.net

3 comments:

Stardust said...

I was watching one of those hot dog eating contests on television one day and the young man was dipping each hotdog and bun in water and shoving it into his face. I thought I was going to be sick just watching him! Then they showed what the human stomach looks like with 42 hotdogs and buns in it and it is like an overstretched balloon! How disgusting! That is pretty extreme to go through for attention! Yet lots of people do. I just don't get it. Humans do so many bizarre things!

uma said...

Yes! Dont they just!

Rose DesRochers said...

46 grilled chicken sandwiches in eleven minutes? I'm going to be sick just thinking about it.

Rose DesRochers