RON’S WISDOM SALON: 

A fictional advice column

Dear Ron,

Are there foods that make you hungrier after you eat them? And If there are, shouldn’t there be warning on the label? There is a pastry (I won’t say which because I don’t want a lawsuit) that I have been eating which  makes me so hungry that right after I finish one I immediately want another one.

This is not right. I eat to get full, and so if this food makes me even hungrier than I was, it stands to reason that I shouldn’t eat it. But- And this is a massive but- I love this food! It is a food which I would choose as a last meal if I were languishing on Death  Row.  When I finish a box of this edible, and I am starving, I feel cheated and I tell myself I will never buy it again. But I do!  Help me, please.

Hungry Hal

Dear Hungry,

You will have to choose. Either eat and be hungry or eat and be full. It does come down to that. Pleasure is what is driving you. This food gives you pleasure but it also causes you pain. Is it worth it? From your tone, I don’t think it is.

Weigh the alternatives. Be a man (if you are a man) and stand up to this pastry! A wise woman  I once met at the  zoo told me that what causes pain hurts more if we have just had pleasure. We suffer by its contrast. It is so simple and so true.

It is like going out with a girl who has real snappy answers and you enjoy her for that, but at the end of the night you realize that she was making a fool of you to everyone at the restaurant. Okay she had a silver tongue, but do you want everyone in the restaurant to laugh at you as if you were the biggest idiot in town?

Well, this pasty is doing that to you. It considers you a jerk and it is right. I am certain that it is telling all the other pastries in the box, “Look at this guy. He is going to eat us and HE WON’T EVEN GET FULL!” And they are LOLing at you.

Eat something that is more boring but ultimately more nourishing as well. A hunk of cheese or a salami pole that sticks to your insides and gives you a firm output the next day. Brush off the pastries. Demanding labels on the boxes? Unfortunately these never work like they are supposed to. If people read labels, there would be lots more fasting in the world.

This should help. I hope!