The Pleasure Of Food

There are far more foundational and otherwise significant pleasures than food.  Before it is an opportunity for experimentation and pleasure, it is a means of survival first and foremost, and survival is objectively meaningless on its own, without any logical or moral significance.  Although which things people find pleasurable and the exact emotions or sensations they experience while eating or pursuing some other pleasure are subjective, even on a subjective level, food seems to rarely be the pleasure that people in general, given the opportunity to pursue other things, will build their life around.  There are still objective depths to other pleasures that food can never reach no matter what certain individuals or cultural groups feel or believe.

For example, sexuality has a far more abstract nature and far more extensive, precise ramifications, in addition to being more existentially personal, more nuanced, having more moral dimensions, and being more foundational to introspective life.  It is clearly more philosophically significant than food could possibly be since food is a practicality that can be used for reflection and self-exploration, while sexuality is a personal, abstract thing that happens to have practical uses that still never separate from its inherently philosophical nature (all things are philosophical, but some things are deeper than others, and sexuality is far deeper than food).  However, food is still a part of human experience and is still governed by the necessary truths of logic.

That food is not central except to the philosophically secondary practicalities of life does not mean there is no way to enjoy something as basic as food in an overtly rationalistic, existential way.  Food can be a source of great joy, a reminder that human life can have its pleasures even across a lifetime of trials.  Consuming food can be a very personal experience alone or when shared with friends.  Creating it can be an expression of genuine intelligence, emotion, and creativity, and devouring it is a pleasure unique among all others in the method by which it is experienced.  It is just that food is never foundational or significant in any way on its own, but only when it connects with other issues that are themselves foundational, personal, or abstract--except significant as a practical necessity to survival, yet even this is at best secondary to matters of deeper philosophy.

In the context of Christianity, consuming food is yet another experience that God would have prepared the body for so that the mind could appreciate it or even long for it.  The asceticism (an anti-pleasure ideology) of the general evangelical church is actually mistaken for a doctrine of Biblical Christianity when everything from food to sexuality to friendship are pleasures to enjoy within the much larger range of moral freedom than even lifelong Christians often realize the Bible grants--the most all-encompassing restriction is to not violate its actual commands or their logical extensions (see Deuteronomy 4:2).  The body, just as it was fashioned for sexual pleasure, is prepared for the sensory experiences that can be involved in merely eating, and Yahweh is not opposed to intentionally trying to spark or delight in pleasures of the tongue.

Food is still an example of a practical necessity that can be savored in a much deeper way than practicality alone could ever allow for or deserve.  The most foundational and/or highest pleasures all pertain to rationality, autonomy, introspective connection with one's own self, moral stability, deep friendship rooted in rationalism and thorough openness, and so on, the difference being that these are inherently core or existential things that can have practical benefits instead of the other way around, with all truths about them transcending mere convenience.  Food does not even begin to rival these things, and people who think of food as the deepest pleasure of life fail to understand the comparative triviality of something that has no metaphysical, moral, or epistemological primacy.  None of this negates that food is a legitimate pleasure that Christians can appreciate all the more as Christians.