The variety of dishes stretches your stomach and fosters
your appetite. Besides, it makes people flabby and dilutes their body. If
during the meal only one dish is offered, and if it is not especially tasty,
then maybe a person will not even finish it. On the other hand, if the food is
tasty, one can give himself to gluttony and eat a bit more of it. However, if
you see fish, soup, potatoes, cheese, fruits and candies on the table – you
just want to eat all of these and you will even ask for more. Your appetite is
growing. When you have eaten something, you want to eat another portion
standing near. Look, a person cannot stand a simple word from his neighbor.
They cannot stand this or that… But our poor stomach has to be humble and
accept everything we throw in it. Do we ask the stomach whether he can stand it
or not? It means that the stomach, which has no mind at all, outperforms us in
virtue! It makes efforts to digest any food we eat. And if the food that we
have eaten is incompatible with the other, then when it reaches the stomach
they begin to “quarrel”. So, what is left to the stomach? Indigestion.
- Geronda, how can we get rid of the habit of eating too
much?
- You have to restrain yourself a bit. You should not
eat what you like in order not to whet your appetite because little by little
your belly will grow. What is more, as Abba Macarius said, your stomach is like
an evil publican: he constantly demands more and more. You take pleasure when
you eat something, but you want to sleep then, you cannot keep working because
of it. If you eat the food of the same kind, it will help you to restrain your
appetite.
- Geronda, if there is a lot of dishes but divided
into small portions, does a person face the same problem?
- E-eh… Well, the problem is the same. The only
difference is that political parties are smaller. So, this is why they cannot
build up the government. When there is the variety of dishes, it is as if many
political parties gathered in your stomach. One party will irritate another
party, they begin to quarrel and fight with each other. Then this will cause
indigestion.
The joy you get from moderate eating is larger than
the joy from the tastiest food. When I was a child, I often went to forest and ate
only a piece of doughnut a day. I did not even want anything else. The tastiest
dishes could not match the spiritual joy that I felt then. I was happy to do
so. However, many people have never experienced the joy of a light stomach. At
first, they eat something tasty with pleasure. Then gluttony comes. They begin
to eat a lot and fell heaviness in their stomach – especially elderly people.
This is how they deprive themselves of the joy of a light stomach.
St.
Paisios of Mount Athos,
“Spiritual
Counsels IV: Family Life”
Source: http://pravlife.org/content/paisiy-svyatogorec-udovolstvie-legkogo-zhivota
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