A scientific analysis of desire: to eat
Trémolières, J.
Ethics in Science and Medicine 3(4): 199-210
1976
ISSN/ISBN: 0306-4581 PMID: 73460 Document Number: 3627
Man may live normally and in nutritional balance between margins of calorie and protein intake that vary from minima to double those figures. This high degree of freedom is due to his excellent physiological adaptability: it is his sense of being which impels him to live at higher or lower levels. Nevertheless, in what he eats lies the choice he is making of the sort of man he desires to be. Human societies are organized around the way in which they procure, produce and consume their foods. Food has always been the gift of God: the fruit of the earth and of a sharing of travail. Today, it threatens to become a symbol of our subjection to scientific methodology and technique. But, to qualify for scientific interpretation, the need to eat would have to be capable of treatment as a gesture that was definable in terms of measurable criteria. The reality is that this can not be done because it would involve the creation of a reference man, and this, even if it were possible, could not be accomplished scientifically. The interpretation of the need to eat has been attempted by two opposing approaches. In the first, which is factorial, the various headings of matter and energy exchange are related to the weight of a reference individual. In the second, a measurement is attempted of the factors that coalesce to produce the average. man who exists within a given society, and at a given moment when he considers himself to be active, satisfied and in good health: this average is established from in situ observation, the judgement of normal behaviour and the limits at which pathological conditions make their appearance. But the social organization possesses its own degrees of liberty, indeterminancy and irrationality. The consumer society which is now ill from indiscriminate indulgence must discipline its consumption. The presumptive right to food and health is no more than a basis from which we must try to comprehend their profound significance within man himself. In seeking to know ourselves and to appreciate our destiny, we become transformed in body and our needs readjust themselves.
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