Getting Sick of Pizza: An E v C Perspective

While I was discussing with my alter-ego on what to eat for dinner, he suggested pizza. I told him that if I have another piece of pizza within the next 3 months I'm going to shoot my head off.Later that day, he suggested that the fact that a human get sick of a certain food after eating it consistently for an extended period of time suggests that our species is somehow special and that this specialness might point to a special place in some sort of design. After all, we feed our dogs, cats, and fifty-some fish the same goddamn things everyday. Sure, the dogs and cats get treats and scraps off the table, but the fish get the same thing every darn day, and they don't seem to mind.In nature, most species we observe seem to consistently sort after a certain kinds of food and many of them hardly ever vary from those foods. For example, most caterpillars seem to be doing fine eating nothing but leaves (although it is true that a few caterpillar species have been known to be carnivores).I pointed out that our pets don't really have a choice. They get whatever we give them. The same can be said about wild animal. They eat whatever that is available at the time.So, is there something special about us preferring to have a variation of our daily diet? Is my loathe for pizza somehow an indication that I am unique among the animal kingdom?I'm not even sure if this is a legitimate EvC topic, so feel free to close it if you don't think this is worthwhile to discuss. I thought I'd give this topic a try after seeing how certain admins have implied a shortage in fresh new topics.

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

i don't think we'd get sick of one kind of food if we didn't have so many choices. in a pinch, most people would happily eat bread and water tossed at them.most of our problem stems from this disgusting industry of choice around us. take into account my job at starbucks (which i leave on sunday thank god). people come in and order all these ridiculous things with nonfat or soy and three, no five sugars make that sweet n (rob) low(e) and 6 no 8 pumps of sugar free vanilla. and then do they look for their drink? no. they just pick up the first one they see and wander off with it. they don't actually know or care what they drink or even if it's hot or cold, they just care about the ego stroke of telling someone to make them exactly what they want and the ability to make all those choices. i've had people who ordered extra hot mochas pick up a caramel frappuchino (frozen beverage). it's really obnoxious because then i have to remake that drink for whoever the poor sap it was really made for. sometimes after a big rush, we'll have five or six or more unclaimed drinks on the bar.me? i really, honestly, seriously could eat macaroni and cheese everyday for the rest of my life.

If pizza was all that you could ever have, and all that you had ever had, you would probably not get sick of it.Your developing loathing for pizza is a function of your existence in a world of plenty, where nearly infinite food choice is avaliable to you. Our brains have evolved to prefer food variety whenever possible so as to maximise the diversity of nutrient intake.Your pets may appear to have a limited diet, but trust that, when you're not looking, your pets are augmenting their diet with stuff they catch out in the yard, or nearby plants, or mineral-rich water from cisterns or air-conditioner condensate. This is a function of the fairly well-developed intelligence of pet animals.Fish? Less intelligent, which is why they're able to both subsist on a monodiet and live in a tiny tank.The science of human appetite is quite fascinating. For instance, humans tend to use visual indications of how much we've eaten - like how many chicken bones are on the table in front of us - rather than any internal sense to gauge how much we need to keep eating. A party at Hooters will eat far more buffalo wings if the wing bones are quickly removed from view than if the bones are left on the table. Another experiment gauged how much soup participants ate, but unbeknowst to them, some of their soup bows were piped into a pot of soup from the bottom so that the bowls slowly filled themselves as the subject ate. Subjects with bottomless bowls of soup ate almost three times as much soup as subjects who had to refill their bowls themselves.Neat stuff. And a good question. I'd say you're half-right - this is an example of how the unique human proficency at thinking about the past and future affects out behavior to a greater degree than other animals.

Maybe humans have more refined taste buds.

Sounds more like an indication that they make really bad pizza where you live.I just wish I could afford to eat pizza every day. When I cook for myself, I often make the same meal every day for a week or more - by choice.

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You may be on to something here. Yep, I definitely think that our liking a variety of foods shows that we are the greatest animal of all. Obviously Jesus had monumental plans for our species when he intelligently designed us 6,000 years ago, as clearly indicated by your getting sick of pizza.

Your examples would be better if you had chosen omnivores rather than carnivores.For example, rats have tastes. They tend to prefer one source of food over another. If they only have the option of their lesser preferred food, maybe they would have some facsimile of want of the other type of food.Its difficult to say if they get sick of eating certain foods, perhaps that is a function of conscious? An interesting experiment might be to give rats one type of 'treat' per day for six monthgs (for example, peanut butter). Then give them another (maybe tomoatoes). Rats prefer peanut butter over tomatoes any day, but we might be able to see if they choose the tomato first just because it is a change.Similar experiments on other omnivores might help. Primates would be the best place to look I'd imagine.

I have eaten one to three peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every day (with a few exceptions) for the past seven and a half years. I still am not tired of them.I could probably eat beans and rice every day without getting tired of it, but I haven't put it to the test yet.I might get tired of pizza if I had it everyday -- hard to say.But I'm with brenna on this one. I think the reason people do get tired of having the same thing every day is that they have gotten used to having significant choices.

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"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
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Me too. I've been making myself a hamburger on sourdough with two or three cloves of garlic cooked down and mashed in the meat juice, for lunch for about a year and a half now. I don't think I'll ever get sick of it. I plan to have it for lunch today.

That's what my wife says she cheerfully ate every meal of her life from toddlerhood to age seven or so - and she had choices. The poor people she grew up around (in Venezuela) ate the same of necessity.Which of Steinbeck's books was it where the family of kids ate tortillas and beans for breakfast, lunch, and supper every day?

Capuchin monkeys definitely have food preferences (and a sense of fairness and reciprocity).I remember on experiment that showed that the monkeys got pissed off if they saw that another monkey was given a more desireable reward (grape) for doing a task that they did in return for a less desireable reward (cucumber slice).Here's more:Monkey research : monkeys show sense of justice

One of the things about being a professional food taster is that you tend to develop a taste for a wide variety of foods.While I have a MUCH greater desire for variety in foods than the group here, it seems, I still tend to stick with a preferred style of cuisine; I like to cook and eat like people do in the mediterranean. Ingredients tend to repeat themselves, but it's the preparation techniques which make them different to the palate.I certainly didn't grow up with food like that. I grew up with American singles, really bad quality lunch meat, and hamburger and potato casserole.My mom hates to cook.

THis thread is making me hungry... i'm off to have a
skinny-mocha-chocca-rocka-frappe-latte-vanilla-hazelnut-cino-pizza, with a side of rice n beans.yum!

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One of the things about being a professional food taster....

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Whoa! You mean that you eat other people's food to make sure it isn't poisoned?