One reason is just that eating food is enjoyable. I limit the amount of food I eat to stay within a healthy range, but if I could increase that amount while staying healthy, I could enjoy that excess.
I think there are two aspects to the enjoyment of food. One is related to satiety. I enjoy the feeling of sating my appetite, and failing to sate it leaves me with te negative experience of craving food (negative if I don’t satisfy those cravings.
But the other aspect is just the enjoyment of eating each individual bite of food. Not the separate enjoyment of sating my appetite, but just the experience of eating.*
When I was younger and much more physically active I ate very large amounts of food. I miss being able to do that. I’m just as sated now with the much smaller portions I eat, but eating a small breakfast instead of a large one is a different experience.
This probably doesn’t justify some sort of risky intervention in increasing liver size. Food is enjoyable, but so are a lot of other things in life. But shifting to a higher protien diet seems like the kind of safe intervention, potentially even also healthier in other respects, that, if it has the side effect of being able to eat a little more food, could improve quality of life with minimal other costs. Potential costs I see are related to the price of protein relative to other sources of nutrition, the cost of additional food (if the point is being able to eat more, you’ve got spend money for that excess), and, depending on one’s moral views, something related to the source of the protien being added.
*I think Kahneman’s remembering vs. expereincing selves adds some confusion here as well. When we remember a meal we don’t necessarily remember the enjoyment we got from every bite, but probably put more weight on the feeling of satiety and the peak experience (how good did it taste at its best?). But the experiencing self experiences every bite. How much you want to weight the remembering vs. experiencing self is a philosophical issue, but I just want to note that it comes up here.
One reason is just that eating food is enjoyable. I limit the amount of food I eat to stay within a healthy range, but if I could increase that amount while staying healthy, I could enjoy that excess.
Ah. I eat to sustain myself. Given that I must, I make it reasonably enjoyable, but it’s a chore I’d just as soon do without.
One reason is just that eating food is enjoyable. I limit the amount of food I eat to stay within a healthy range, but if I could increase that amount while staying healthy, I could enjoy that excess.
I think there are two aspects to the enjoyment of food. One is related to satiety. I enjoy the feeling of sating my appetite, and failing to sate it leaves me with te negative experience of craving food (negative if I don’t satisfy those cravings.
But the other aspect is just the enjoyment of eating each individual bite of food. Not the separate enjoyment of sating my appetite, but just the experience of eating.*
When I was younger and much more physically active I ate very large amounts of food. I miss being able to do that. I’m just as sated now with the much smaller portions I eat, but eating a small breakfast instead of a large one is a different experience.
This probably doesn’t justify some sort of risky intervention in increasing liver size. Food is enjoyable, but so are a lot of other things in life. But shifting to a higher protien diet seems like the kind of safe intervention, potentially even also healthier in other respects, that, if it has the side effect of being able to eat a little more food, could improve quality of life with minimal other costs. Potential costs I see are related to the price of protein relative to other sources of nutrition, the cost of additional food (if the point is being able to eat more, you’ve got spend money for that excess), and, depending on one’s moral views, something related to the source of the protien being added.
*I think Kahneman’s remembering vs. expereincing selves adds some confusion here as well. When we remember a meal we don’t necessarily remember the enjoyment we got from every bite, but probably put more weight on the feeling of satiety and the peak experience (how good did it taste at its best?). But the experiencing self experiences every bite. How much you want to weight the remembering vs. experiencing self is a philosophical issue, but I just want to note that it comes up here.
Ah. I eat to sustain myself. Given that I must, I make it reasonably enjoyable, but it’s a chore I’d just as soon do without.