[GonzoII]

[pnh102]

This is silly. If you care about healthy food why would you eat out?

[SJSAMPLE]

It’s a proven fact that these restaurants will stop offering/selling these items if the customers stop buying them.

Just saying.

[onedoug]

Doggie-bags, please.

[Alex Murphy]

The moral deformity discernible in this vice lies in its defiance of the order postulated by reason, which prescribes necessity as the measure of indulgence in eating and drinking.

So what do "reason" and "neccessity" tell us? That a daily intake of more than 2500 calories is immoral?

[savedbygrace]

Yeah, liberty is so overrated, doncha think?

/sarcasm

[50sDad]

That's why your friendly server will provide you with a white styrofoam takeout container. Lunch the next day...what could be better?

Moderation is for monks. Enjoy life.

[DieHard the Hunter]

This article intends to soften everybody up for food shortages. It’s the Soviet way, ya know.

[edge10]

‘Claim Jumper’ has built there empire on ridiculously over-sized portions.

http://www.claimjumper.com/

[Salvation]

For everyone's reference:

"Care for an Entrée With Your Entrée?" Gluttony, the Forgotten Sin

Seven Deadly Sins: Sloth or 'Acedia'
Seven deadly sins alive and well today, says Jesuit journal
The Virtue-Driven Life
The Virtues (counteracting the REAL Seven Deadly Sins)
What are Capital Sins? [Seven Deadly Sins]

[razorboy]

Another example of upside down world. Back in the day a restaurant with large portions would be praised for giving people their money’s worth. Now their condemned for making people fat.

[GonzoII]

World's Fattest Man

[Melas]

I’ve actually heard something similar preached in the pulpit. To paraphrase: Homosexuality is a popular sin to preach about from the pulpit because few if any parishioners are themselves homosexual. Gluttony isn’t popular because there are way too many fatties in the pews who are going to loosen up their belts after a 90 minute shovel fest at a local buffet as soon as the service is over.

[Darnright]

Here's a link, for those interested, that calculates how many calories you should be eating per day. It's individual, and you may be surprised at how many calories you should eat per day as opposed to how many calories you actually eat on a daily basis.

Mifflin-St Jeor Equation for Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)

http://www.scientificpsychic.com/health/cron2.html

[sitetest]

Our family stopped eating at the Cheesecake Factory some years ago because of this problem. When we eat out, each of us often likes to have an appetizer, maybe a salad, and an entree. And if we’re not too full, maybe a dessert. We also like variety, and each of us like to order different things, and then we share them.

But at the Cheesecake Factory, I remember once ordering a pasta dish with chicken, and it came out looking like they’d cooked a pound of pasta and added two steroidal chicken breasts! With all the other appetizers/entrees similarly sized, we easily had enough food for our family of four to feed ten or fifteen people.

I don’t mind bringing leftovers home and eating them the next day, but from this trip we had enough food for the better part of a week.

We prefer restaurants where we can choose selections that better match our appetites at a given meal, on a given day.

[Larry Lucido]

“As long as the vice of gluttony has a hold on a man, all that he has done valiantly is forfeited by him: and as long as the belly is unrestrained, all virtue comes to naught.” But virtue is not done away save by mortal sin. Therefore gluttony is a mortal sin. (Summa Theologiae, II-IIae, Q. 148, a. 1 & 2).

“Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man: but what cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.” (Jesus)

[MEGoody]

Ever hear of a “doggie bag”? It’s not like the restaurant makes you eat everything on your plate.

[MEGoody]

We need to really examine what "gluttony" means from a biblical perspective. I don't think it merely means someone who eats too much and is overweight, because the there are scriptures that talk about "fatness" in a good way. (Nehemiah 9:25 for example.)

Perhaps gluttony has more to do with being more consumed by food than by consuming food.

I would venture to say that thin, fit people can be as guilty of gluttony as fat, out of shape people.

[marshmallow]

The opposite of gluttony of course, is fasting. Scripture tells us that fasting is a discipline which has immense spiritual benefits. Jesus himself fasted for 40 days in the desert prior to his public ministry. He also told us that certain demons do not come out except through "prayer and fasting".

Likewise, the great saints and desert fathers all fasted and mortified their senses. This is because they all saw the flesh as an enemy which needed to be subjugated and disciplined.

Conversely self-indulgence, whether it be with food or some other means of gratification is behavior which separates us from our main purpose on this earth. St. Paul makes reference to this in his Letter to the Phillipians when he refers to those "whose god is their belly" (Philippians 3:19).

[Billthedrill]

Ah, gluttony. The sin you wear. A matter of degree, really, inasmuch as it consists of eating more than you need to eat. It constitutes sin when you eat more than God thinks you need to, not when you eat more than somebody else thinks you need to, especially if that somebody else happens to be a celery-chewing food nazi. Apart from that it really doesn't differ much from any other self-inflicted wound, or rather it didn't up until now.

However, with the advent of socialized medicine I'm gonna have to pony up fer yer bypass surgery, buckaroo, so drop that Twinkie and gimme twenty. That's the great thing about socialism - it turns every one of your neighbors into that bossy little girl you could never stand in grade school. Who needs freedom? She'll tell you how to live. She listens to NPR so she knows.

Personally I control myself by imagining my reflection in a mirror with a big, nasty gut and knowing how hard it is to get rid of it. Fortunately, vanity isn't a sin.

Oh, wait...

[Oatka]

Oh, for the good ole days.

From Elaborate Toltec Club Society’s Gathering Place in Early Days:
"Those were the days of the nickel beer, with a free lunch thrown in.
The customer who spent as much as five cents for a glass of beer—standard price in those time—was entitled to size up the large assortment of cold food stuffs and help himself. The layout resembled the stock in better delicatessen stores.
The man who wasn’t bothered by any qualms of conscience could stand before the food counter, holding a glass of beer where everybody could see it, and stuff himself.
Then, there were the timid soul who believed that, for $2 worth o free eats, he should, at least, spend more than a nickel for beer. So, he gave the bartender another nickel for a second glass, loosened his belt and waddled back to the food."