No other phrase is more American than "All You Can Eat." Most other countries eat to live, we live to eat. What other country would invent a holiday centered totally around food like Thanksgiving? I always feel sorry for those poor saps on the evening news who show Americans from only the waist down until I realize that could just as easily be me. By the way, who decided the word obese is more PC than the word fat, it's certainly not quicker to the point. That is like calling a kid who is just a pain in the ass (and I quote) a "fussy eater." That's nothing more than just a polite euphemism for a parent that has lost their way. Grandma taught me three important things about food early on in life. #1) Never bad mouth it, #2) never waste it, and #3) hunger is the best sauce. Few of us have ever truly been hungry, if we had been we wouldn't be setting around talking about the finer points of roquefort dressing. Right now, there is a height versus weight chart hanging in my doctor's office that lays down the law of who is fat and who isn't. By that standard even Michael Jorden is considered obese.
Food is the fuel that we need to put in our bodies to keep breathing in and out. Just like oxygen and water we would parish without it. But eating too much of it is likely more problematic than not getting enough. Think of it in terms of putting gas in a tank, you will have to burn off what you put in or eventually just break down and get a bigger tank. This is where physics and diabetes start to do their dirty dance. Nobody in the free world is more interested in food than Americans. Not only do we eat too much of it, but we are also far too interested in how much of it we can get for a minimum price. It doesn't even matter if we can eat everything that is brought to the table, if we think we were cheated on portions likely we won't go back. Especially as Okies nothing curls our toes like a chicken fried steak that is bigger than the platter and served with enough sausage gravy to fill a swimming pool. In Oklahoma gravy is a beverage.
Some of us are old enough to remember when they had $1.99 all you can eat buffets in Las Vegas. People came for the cheap food and stayed for the gambling, the chorus girls, and the watered-down drinks. It worked just like the pit bosses designed them. That is until one of the casinos figured out you could charge $40 for the buffet and still draw the same crowd. These days Vegas produces about five billion pounds of food waste per calendar year. Yes, I said BILLION as in brisket, bacon, and burgers. Americans are wily enough to solve any problem including world hunger, the question is will they? If all of that food ended up on the tables of people who needed it instead of in receptacles there would be NO hunger in the consecutive 48 states. We have plenty of it, it just needs to be distributed with some intelligence. That's not just my opinion, that's an undeniable mathematical certainty. The length at which Americans will go to get their caloric fix knows no bounds. These days the Bacchanal Hotel in Vegas is charging $84.99 per person for their choke and puke buffet. Why don't they just call it $85 and stop blowing smoke up our keister? Each day they preview better than 500 items on their buffet and run 3,500 souls through the line for their literal gun wrenching experience like cattle in a slaughterhouse. If I am going to pay $85 for a buffet, I better be able to eat oysters until I pass out, get a foot massage, a monogramed robe, and get a free front-end alinement on my F-150.
For years restaurant chains have been promising patrons free this, that, and the other thing, along with a tee shirt and their picture on the wall of fame if they can finish a 72oz steak. Which let's be honest is just a pot roast disguised as a gigantic porter house. This is literally like trying to suck the marrow out of life and choking on the bone. Why do they do it? The answer is unclear because in the long haul all you can eat promotions are money losers. The president of the Sirloin Stockade chains had to drive himself to bankruptcy court in a dented Yugo back in the early 80's because of his all you can eat salad bars. All you can eat anything it seems to promise that guests might return for follow up visits, but while that may put butts in seats initially, the chance of them returning is just a pipe dream. Red Lobster may promise you endless shrimp but in the end what they are hoping is that you will fill up on cheaper items like cheddar biscuits, baked potatoes, and alcoholic drinks filled with corn syrup. The last time I ate at RL it was so horrible I vowed never to return and that takes a lot. The cheddar biscuits may still be spot on but that is little consolation when it seems they have started using the lobster bisque stock pot as a urinal.
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